Tweets @limkitsiang:-

TBH RCI should have terms of reference expanded 2include what Najib promised 22/7/09 – full public scrutiny of MACC investigation methods

This was bcos of many allegations of torture/physical violence perpetrated by MACC officers http://bit.ly/yr4Br Did MACC lobyy agnst this?
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The Star online
Thursday May 19, 2011

KUALA LUMPUR: Attorney-General Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail has written to the Shah Alam High Court seeking to defer the hearing date of his revision application over the open verdict delivered by the Coroner’s Court following its inquest into the death of political aide Teoh Beng Hock.

The Shah Alam High Court is scheduled to hear the revision application on May 23.

The A-G wants Justice Datuk Wira Mohtarudin Baki, who will be hearing the application, to defer hearing date until the Commission of Inquiry investigating Teoh’s death makes its conclusions.

The commission had announced that a report of its findings will be handed over to the Yang di-Pertuan Agong on June 24. Read the rest of this entry »

Tweets @limkitsiang:-

TBH RCI- Y ShafeeAbdullah as counsel did not advise MACC 2admit responsibility 4TeohBengHock’s death as TBH was under MACC custody premises?

Then MACC shld fully co-operated w RCI 2establish actual circumstances of TBH death. No. MACC denied 2very end – with lies cover-ups.

What Shafie meant when said focus TBH’s death x on MACC blunders n referred 2OJ Simpson murder case? MACC want Shafie 2do a Simpson in RCI?
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By Shannon Teoh
May 18, 2011 | The Malaysian Insider

KUALA LUMPUR, May 18 — The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission’s (MACC) lawyer today urged the public to focus on Teoh Beng Hock’s death and not the blunders by the anti-graft body in its investigations into Selangor DAP.

Datuk Seri Shafee Abdullah, who is representing the MACC in the Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) into Teoh’s death, said that despite these errors, justice must still be served and the question of whether the DAP aide committed suicide be answered.

“Ask yourself honestly, whatever monkey things the MACC officers may have been blundering, wrong in certain procedures, a little harsh in questioning, the hallmark question is whether this suicide or not,” he told reporters outside the RCI courtroom today. Read the rest of this entry »

By Teoh El Sen | May 18, 2011
Free Malaysia Today

KUALA LUMPUR: The “suicide” note purportedly written by Teoh Beng Hock would be re-examined to extract and decipher a few words that were blacked out by someone, perhaps even the author.

The Royal Commission of Inquiry investigating Teoh’s death was re-convened briefly this morning to decide on the application made by Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) lawyer Muhammad Shafee Abdullah to re-analyse the note.

Shafee’s application made via a letter last week (May 11) had asked the commission to ascertain what was written beneath an erased part of the note and subsequently admit that as evidence.
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By Boo Su-Lyn
The Malaysian Insider
May 09, 2011

KUALA LUMPUR, May 9 — Despite being pressured by a Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) lawyer on the contents of a mystery note, Teoh Beng Hock’s sister Lee Lan insisted before a royal panel today that her brother did not write it even as she broke down in tears at one point in her testimony.

Datuk Seri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah bombarded her with a series of questions on the mystery note and whether she could recognise her brother’s handwriting, until she said: “I want to know the correct and the exact truth (behind Beng Hock’s death). This is the reason we requested for this commission.”

“During the inquest, when they showed such a note, immediately we discussed and said this note does not belong to Teoh Beng Hock,” said Lee Lan at the inquiry today, as the RCI nears the conclusion of its testimony collection.

“This could not be written by Teoh Beng Hock because (there was) no need for him to write such notes,” she added. Read the rest of this entry »

Teoh El Sen
Free Malaysia Today
May 9, 2011

KUALA LUMPUR: A senior Selangor Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) officer had pleaded to her superior to order his subordinates not to give false statements in the Teoh Beng Hock case.

Senior investigating officer Azian Umar, 31, said this today when questioned by Bar Council’s Cheow Wee at the Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) investigating Teoh’s death.

Cheow read out a SMS text message sent by Azian to Selangor MACC investigation department chief Hairul Ilham Hamzah in which she said “this is a big case, it involves a person’s life, if (we) lie once, then we need to lie many times more to support the lie”.

In the SMS, in which she expressed sadness at what had happened in Teoh’s case, she also said the incident with Teoh may be God’s “divine retribution” to MACC. Read the rest of this entry »

By Teoh El Sen | May 9, 2011
Free Malaysia Today

KUALA LUMPUR: The Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) investigating the death of Teoh Beng Hock today saw an emotional Soh Cher Wei, Teoh’s fiancée, give a tearful testimony on the man’s character.

Soh, a 30-year-old teacher from Johor, sobbed when she told the court that Teoh’s hobby was cooking and struggled to control her emotions when commissioner forensic psychiatrist Dr Mohd Hatta Shaharom asked her: “Your relationship with Teoh is considered love. What is the meaning of love to you?”

“It’s that the person will be with me until the very end. That’s my answer,” said Soh, who sobbed in-between her words and wiped her tears away with a tissue.

Hatta: What do you like about Teoh?

Soh: He is a person who is good. He loves me and his family.
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Former Court of Appeal judge Datuk Shaikh Daud Ismail should not have compromised his stature by allowing himself to be dragooned by Barisan Nasional propagandists to run down Teoh Beng Hock’s family and lawyers for the family’s decision to withdraw from the Royal Commission of Inquiry into Teoh’s mysterious death at the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) headquarters in Shah Alam in July 2009.

Another example of such a media blitzkrieg was the comment by the Universiti Teknologi Mara Assoc Prof of Law Datuk Halim Sidek.

I agree with the advice yesterday by the DAP National Chairman Karpal Singh to Halim that he should “in future demonstrate maturity by checking his facts before making public statements” so as “to set a good example to would-be lawyers under his charge”.

It is most unbecoming of a former judge of the Court of Appeal to make the baseless allegation that Teoh’s family had shown “clear disrespect” to the Yang di Pertuan Agong by pulling out of the Royal Commission of Inquiry.
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Brave New World
By Azmi Sharom
The Star
Thursday February 24, 2011

To ensure that there is no conflict of interest, the conducting officers must be totally unbiased.

THE family of Teoh Beng Hock has decided that they do not want to take part in the Commission of Inquiry which was set up to investigate his death.

This act has been criticised by some quarters as being a political ploy designed to delay the proceedings. I beg to disagree.

The family has some very compelling reasons for doing what they did.

Their main complaint is that there is currently an appeal in the courts regarding the findings of the inquest. Read the rest of this entry »

Malaysians sympathise and support the decision of Teoh Beng Hock’s family to pull out of the Royal Commssion of Inquiry as it has no confidence in its independence and professionalism to get to the bottom of Teoh’s mysterious death at Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) headquarters at Shah Alam on July 16, 2009 after falling from MACC’s 14th floor.

The family’s confidence in the independence and professionalism was greatly crushed when the RCI today refused to accede to its requests, made through lawyers Karpal Singh and Gobind Singh Deo, firstly, that Commission Chairman Tan Sri James Foong should recuse himself as he is a sitting Federal Court judge and secondly, to be given time to seek judicial review over the appointment of deputy public prosecutors from the Attorney-General’s Chambers as conducting officers of the RCI.

How can anyone have confidence in the independence and professionalism of the Teoh Beng Hock RCI when on the one hand, officers from the AG’s Chambers are responsible for the conduct of the RCI while on the other hand, the Attorney-General is actively seeking a revision of the “Open Verdict” of the Teoh Beng Hock inquest?

As nobody believes that the Attorney-General wants to overturn the “Open Verdict” of the inquest because the coroner, Azmil Muntapha Abas, should have returned a finding of “death by homicide”, the only conclusion left is that the AG wants to repudiate the Coroner’s finding and return a verdict of “Death by Suicide”, i.e. that the MACC is completely exonerated for Teoh’s death.

How can the Teoh Beng Hock family or ordinary Malaysians have confidence in the independence and professionalism of the RCI when the officers responsible for the conduct of the RCI are officers from the AG’s Chambers – when at the very same time the Attorney-General is actively seeking to challenge the inquest finding ruling out “suicide” as the cause of Teoh’s death? Read the rest of this entry »

The Royal Commission of Inquiry into Teoh Beng Hock’s mysterious death fulfilled only one of three criteria needed to fully satisfy public demands for a credible, high-level, wide-ranging and no-holds-barred probe.

I had yesterday given the instant comment that the Royal Commission of Inquiry announced by the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak, is “a step in the right direction” as it has an expanded scope to investigate into the cause of Teoh’s death at the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) headquarters at Shah Alam on July 16, 2009 – as Najib had earlier announced with full public support by the MCA President Datuk Dr. Chua Soi Lek that the RCI is only tasked with investigating MACC’s “investigation procedures” but specifically excluded from probing into the cause of Teoh’s death.

It was this limitation of the RCI from further probing into the “Open Verdict” of the Coroner Azmil Muntapha Abas in Teoh’s inquest excluding suicide as the cause of Teoh’s death and the important finding of Teoh’s pre-fall neck injury, which had caused nation-wide consternation and outrage – further compounded by the refusal of the Attorney-General Tan Sri Gani Patail to give public accounting whether he was seeking to revise the Coroner’s “Open Verdict” to reject the finding excluding Teoh’s death as caused by suicide!

If Gani Patail had not wanted to revise the Coroner’s “Open Verdict” by striking out its finding excluding suicide as the cause of Teoh’s death, why didn’t the Attorney-General immediately exercised his powers and duties under Section 339(2) of the Criminal Procedure Code to take action and direct the police to initiate investigations against those MACC officers who must be held responsible for Teoh’s prefall neck injury and to get to the bottom of the truth about the relationship of Teoh’s prefall injury to his death?

While the RCI’s terms of reference now cover the cause of Teoh’s death, it scope has been narrowed from that originally announced by Najib in July 2009. Read the rest of this entry »