Beng Hock’s family demands criminal charges against MACC trio

By Melissa Chi

October 28, 2011

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 28 — Teoh Beng Hock’s family today demanded that the police investigate the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) officers named in the royal commission of inquiry (RCI) into Teoh’s death for contributing to the DAP aide’s death.

The family accused the Najib administration yesterday of “taking grieving family members for a ride” by not pushing for criminal charges against three national graftbusters despite a royal investigation panel finding the trio contributed to the political aide’s death two years ago.

Lee Lan shows the police report that she lodged on October 28, 2011. — Picture by Melissa Chi

Today, the family lodged a police report in the hope of initiating a criminal probe.

“It’s not that we do not have patience. We have been so patient but it has been taken advantage of.

“We’ve waited long enough and there is still no serious action from the government,” Beng Hock’s sister Lee Lan told reporters outside the Tun H.S. Lee police station here.

The Teohs had said the government’s inaction casts serious doubt not only on the credibility of the RCI the prime minister foisted on the family, but its chairman, Federal Court judge Tan Sri James Foong Cheng Yuen.

The still-grieving family was responding to de facto law minister Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz’s statement four days ago that the government would not be prosecuting the three officers from the MACC despite being named in the RCI report released three months ago because no one had filed a police report to do so.

Today, Lee Lan, accompanied by lawyer and Puchong MP Gobind Singh Deo and Serdang MP Teo Nie Ching, lodged a police report.

Teo pointed out that the police could have lodged a report and started an investigation, just as they did with Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng, when he claimed that Beng Hock was murdered.

The Teohs said they found it incredulous the government remained suspicious and sceptical of the RCI report and left it to the MACC to head another “special task force investigating their own officers”.

They pointed out the RCI had incriminated the MACC trio — Mohd Anuar Isamil (named in the report as “the bully”), Mohd Ashraf Mohd Yunus (“the abuser”) and Hishammuddin Hashim (“the arrogant leader”) — in its report for using inappropriate violence to draw information out of Beng Hock who was only a witness.

Beng Hock, political secretary to Seri Kembangan assemblyman Ean Yong Hian Wah, was found dead on July 16, 2009 on the fifth-floor external corridor of the Selangor MACC office in Shah Alam after a marathon questioning overnight.

The government set up the RCI in January this year after the coroner delivered an “open verdict” ruling out both suicide and homicide.

The royal panel found that Teoh had been driven to suicide after harsh, relentless questioning by MACC officers.