I personally believe that, judging from the circumstances of TBH’s death, it was caused by foul play though I’m not sure of the nature of foul play and whether it tantamount, in technical sense, to a homicide

The inconclusive open verdict was only expected. Many would think the Coroner dared not implicate MACC or upset the Powers-that-be. That may well be a factor.

However to be fair to Coroner Azmil Muntapha Abas, his hands are tied even if he has his suspicions. This is because he was presiding a court inquest and not a court trial. There is a big difference. A trial focuses on guilt. The prosecutor accuses and the accused defends. The outcome depends on weighing probabilities of whether guilt is established beyond reasonable doubt. An inquest, on the other hand, is an inquisitorial process; its focus is to nquire what facts it could establish reasonably conclusively. On this, the Coroner did establish quite conclusively the facts of when and where TBH died. He could not establish conclusively that any one in MACC was responsible for his death. That is only expected because neither police nor MACC had conducted an investigation along the direction that someone in MACC was responsible to provide the Coroner the necessary evidence to implicate based on conclusive facts than just acting on mere reasonable suspicion. This is borne out by TBH’s family’s counsel Gobind Deo’s statement that “the standard of investigation was far from satisfactory in many aspects” when he questioned the MACC Commission (MACC) on the findings by Azmil on pre-fall injuries, and urged the police to relook their reports…

If TBH’s family were to be not denied justice, the first course right at the beginning ought to have been a thorough police investigation in the way and direction of MACC having dominion and custody of TBH, to see if any one there was responsible for foul play. It was forensics of autopsy/postmortem that brought to light TBH’s pre-fall injuries like contusion to the neck, injury to thigh and anus and blow on the head. It was not brought to light by police investigations. Instead they came out with a “sudden death” excuse, which under the Criminal Procedure Code requires an Inquest with all its inherent limitations of not being able, like in a trial, to draw the proper and reasonable inferences unless there’s conclusive facts backing the conclusion.

Now don’t just say this is Malaysia’s kind of inquest. Even in other places, like a case of an Inquest in India where the Coroner there discovered that some foul play was involved in the death of the person, yet he felt bound to return an open verdict when there were insufficient facts presented before him to conclusively identify the particular culprit who did the killing!

There are three permutations of how he died (1) Suicide (2) Homicide and (3) Azmil’s theory of “accidental death”

On (3) The Sun reported that Azmil “ruled out suicide and homicide even though he raised doubts that Teoh could have exited unaided from the window on the 14th floor of Plaza Masalam in Shah Alam before falling to his death following overnight interrogation by Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) officers.” What does this imply to any reasonable man ???? Why would TBH climbed out on his own through the narrow aperture of the window on the 14th floor of Plaza Masalam and accidentally fall to his death??? Surely he could not be going out there on his own to enjoy the sunrise and the view in the morning of Shah Alam!

This means he was either pushed out there or he clambered out there on his own in order to only escape his attackers who had inflicted the pre-fall injuries unto him – in either scenario of which MACC cannot escape accountability.

It also means that if Azmil’s open verdict were inconclusive, his findings of (i) no suicide and (ii) existence of pre-fall injuries however means that the circumstances surrounding his death are sufficiently extraordinary to justify and require the re-opening of a more thorough investigations of this case, whether by the police or the RCI or both, in line with what the PM promised TBH’s family about doing justice by ferreting out the truth of these circumstances….

Azmil’s verdict is more a start than end of hope for justice in this sense. It would have been the “end” if he had otherwise ruled, as what government prosecutors and doctors would desire him to find, that the injuries to TBH’s neck as caused, as what MACC’s expert witness Dr Vanezis opined, by the fall itself and not ”pre-fall” or that TBH had likely committed suicide! What is there to stop him from so ruling???

I said Azmil was Ok because he wasn’t going out of the way to please the official or one minister’s theory of suicide when he found not a scintilla of evidence suggesting it, and that if he were to otherwise unconscionably do so, it would represent a grave injustice to the TBH’s family! An open verdict is what he could most and farthest deliver, given the limiting nature of such an inquest and the political pressures prevailing. An open verdict is no bar to further investigations.

Azmil, by his findings, was not exactly opening the door wide but leaving it sufficiently ajar for TBH’s family and supporters to have just sufficient lee way to use the non-conclusiveness of his open verdict together with the implications of his findings to lobby the government and authorities for a more thorough investigation of the death, that so far has eluded them and the Malaysian public seeking accountability.

Sorry, correction – Dr Vanezis was MACC’s forensic expert and not MACC’s lawyer as wrongly stated in 4th para of my 2nd (middle) posting #23 above.

The Coroner ruled out suicide but as far as homicide goes, he said that was no evidence presented before him to prove homicide. Which is correct because the police’s investigations have not as yet produced anything to support that homicide conclusion.

This does not mean that it was not a case of homicide if investigations had been thorough. The circumstances surrounding TBH’s death reasonably justify such suspicions of foul play.

The Coroner not only found evidence of pre-fall injuries but he also said that:

· “there was unchallenged evidence of scratch marks on the sole of the deceased (TBH)’s shoe which were consistent with Teoh being in a siting position on the window ledge , and

· “the consequences of such (pre-fall) injury raised serious doubts as to the capability of Teoh getting out of the window unassisted, both physically and mentally” – (reference New Straits Times report 6th Jan pg 2 of Prime News).

What does this suggest? Certainly Teoh did not on his own clamber to the ledge to watch the sunrise over Shah Alam and in that process had an accidental fall!

The question is “who put him on that ledge that resulted in his fall”? That guy is the one, perhaps with collaborators, who killed him.

There is, according to Coroner, incontrovertible evidence that he died from the fall from height between 7.15 am and 11.15 am on July 16th 2009.

There is also no challenge from TBH’s side or any quarters to MACC’s representation that official interrogation ended much earlier at 3.30 am.

If TBH had fallen to his death before end of interrogation at 3 am then there might have been a basis to suspect MACC’s officials inadvertently killed him in the course of interrogation using 3rd degree methods. The fact that he was seen well at 6 am and died later between 7.15 am and 11.15 am negates this prospect. Besides MACC has no official cause to do TBH’s harm. He was needed a live to testify and bring down Pakatan Rakat’s state assemblymen to bring down PR state Government.

Therefore the harm done to TBH at the time of death (7.15 am and 11.15 am) way after interrogation implies the likelihood of person or persons inside MACC precincts outside MACC’s official policy, whose private and unofficial agenda it was, to deliberately harm, if not kill TBH. It is a likely case of homicide. That it occurred within MACC’s precincts that provided the opportunity for such a crime to be perpetrated of course makes MACC culpable and failing it its duty to offer protection to those under its dominion and control. It does not however shed light who did this dastardly criminal act who is also in the powerful position to thwart rigorous investigation by either MACC or the police. For this reason, Govt must launch an investigation.