1Malaysia: Teoh Beng Hock, Kugan Ananthan and Adi Anwar

By Pak Bui

Teoh Beng Hock, 30, Political Secretary to Selangor Executive Councillor (Exco) Ean Yong Hian Wah, was found dead yesterday afternoon. He had fallen to his death onto a roof of a four-storey building next to the Selangor offices of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) on the 14th floor of the Masalam Building in Shah Alam.

Teoh, from Alor Gajah, Malacca, had been a former Sin Chew Jit Poh journalist. The MACC had summoned Teoh, aide to the DAP Exco Ean Yong (an equivalent of a Sarawak State Minister), to the building at 5pm on July 15, to be interviewed as a witness. The MACC had begun investigations into Ean Yong and six other Pakatan Rakyat (PR) Selangor State Assembly members.

PR leaders have condemned the MACC raids of elected representatives’ offices, as being biased and politically motivated. The PR has pointed out that the MACC has ignored numerous reports of ill-gotten wealth involving former Umno Selangor Menteri Besar Khir Toyo and others.

MACC Director of Investigations Mohd Shukri Abdul said that the MACC had questioned Teoh from 5pm on July 15 and had freed Teoh at 3.45am on July 16 – a period of ten and three-quarter hours. Shukri claimed Teoh had said he was tired and wanted to sleep on a sofa at the MACC office. Yet Teoh had driven to the MACC office himself the day before, and his car remained parked outside.

Ean Yong had rushed to the MACC when he heard of Teoh’s death. “There was no reason for him to linger as his car was here,” he said.

Shukri said MACC staff had been alerted at 1.30pm yesterday by the screams of the person who discovered the body. He said MACC staff then recognised the deceased as one of the witnesses they had called in.

DAP leader Lim Kit Siang said he was shocked. He said Teoh had been planning to register his marriage today. “What is this country coming to?”

Selangor Police Chief Khalid Abu Bakar said the police were investigating the death. Khalid is the same police chief who has refused repeated calls to resign, despite the death in custody of Kugan Ananthan and the brutal police torture of Adi Anwar Mansor. Kugan died after being beaten by police. Adi Anwar was beaten so badly that he was placed on life support in the Intensive Care Unit.

The investigation into Kugan’s death has never yielded any results, raising allegations of a cover-up. The Selangor police even raided the offices of the Universiti Malaya Forensic Pathologist Dr Prashant and seized forensic samples and notes on Kugan’s autopsy. Prashant had examined Kugan’s body and found evidence that Kugan had been beaten until his muscles had broken down and caused kidney failure.

Only three possibilities

The investigators into Teoh’s death can come to one of three conclusions. Teoh may have fallen unintentionally. He may have committed suicide by jumping. Or he may have been pushed.

If Teoh fell accidentally, the MACC must be called to account, because Teoh must have been exhausted, making such a fall more likely. The MACC admits interrogators had kept Teoh until 3.45 in the morning. Why was this necessary? Could not the MACC have called Teoh in for questioning during the day, rather than keeping him through most of the night? The MACC concedes Teoh was not a suspect. Therefore, Teoh should have been treated with respect, for co-operating in the MACC’s controversial investigation. Did the MACC not know that sleep deprivation is a form of torture?

If Teoh jumped, the MACC must also accept a degree of responsibility, because the ordeal of overnight questioning must have placed Teoh under mental stress. However, the possibility of suicide appears remote, since Teoh was about to celebrate his marriage. Teoh had gone with his lawyer, M Manoharan (also the lawyer for Kugan’s family and Adi Anwar), to the MACC office on July 15. “He was happy and looked composed,” Manoharan said. “I had advised him how to handle the interrogation as I was not allowed in during questioning.” Why was Teoh’s lawyer denied access?

If Teoh was pushed, it might have happened during a disagreement or scuffle. The MACC’s story that Teoh had been released, yet decided to hang around in the office, does not stand up to scrutiny. Why would anyone want to stay at an MACC office or police station after being interrogated for nearly eleven hours?

Tainted offices

The MACC’s Selangor offices will now be tainted with grave suspicion. Many Malaysians will be unable to pass the building without a feeling of dread and anger.

In Johannesburg, the infamous John Vorster Police Station was shunned by South Africans, because the apartheid government’s Security Branch had held its interrogations on the tenth floor. Many anti-apartheid activists had died falling from the windows. They were said to have committed suicide or slipped.

The MACC will not elicit the same hatred as the Johannesburg police did, but it will be widely despised. The police, the MACC and the judiciary are Malaysian institutions charged with protecting Malaysia from crime. Yet these institutions have suffered a humiliating loss of public trust.

In any healthy democracy, the Home Minister, and the heads of the national and state Anti-Corruption Commission, would volunteer their resignations over this scandal.

It is grimly obvious, however, that these self-styled guardians of public security will not resign of their own free will. It may take the ballot box to replace the people in these tainted institutions, with others who deserve the trust of the Malaysian people.

If Teoh’s death is a catalyst in this process, it will have helped change the history of a nation.

“Hornbill Unleashed invites readers to email us at hueditor@gmail.com with leads or other specific information on issues or individuals involved in or related to the article above.”