Suspicions abound as to who are responsible for the “black blog” which had appeared anonymously in the past week to defame DAP Selangor Excos, Ronnie Liu and Ean Yong Hian Wah, accusing them of corrupt practices, based on lies, half-truths and doctored documents.

One suspicion is the MACC or MACC officers, in order to deflect public outrage over the mysterious death of Teoh Beng Hock at the MACC Headquarters on July 16, 2009.

As Professor Dr. Shad Faruqi of the of the Faculty of Law, UiTM wrote in the Star “Ferreting out the Facts” today, many questions cry out for answers about the Teoh’s mysterious death at MACC, including:

After Teoh was released, did he make any telephone calls which could give some pointers to the time of his death? Was his handphone seized? Was his handphone tampered with? Were the injuries on his body the result of the fall or of prior abuse by himself or by others?

Did he die because of the fall or was he already dead when his body plunged to the floor below? Did no one hear the sickening thud of his body falling nearly 10 floors?

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MCA, Gerakan and MIC Ministers should stop tomorrow’s announcement of the composition of Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) on Teoh Beng Hock’s death so as not to jeopardize any effort to ask the Cabinet on Wednesday to widen the scope of the RCI to zero in on Teoh’s death.

Cabinet Ministers, whether from Umno, MCA, Gerakan and MIC cannot be unaware that the Cabinet decision last Wednesday to refuse to set up a RCI to probe the causes of Teoh’s death had been greeted with consternation and condemnation, together with calls for a Cabinet review to expand the scope of the RCI into the MACC’s interrogation methods to include the causes of Teoh’s death.

The Cabinet decision to have an inquest headed by a magistrate is just not acceptable to the majority of Malaysians who want a completely independent inquiry into Teoh’s death which could command public confidence. Read the rest of this entry »

The 15-day inquest into Teoh Beng Hock’s unusual death at the MACC headquarters on 16th July 2009 which is to begin on Wednesday, 29th July till August 12 should be halted to allow for the Cabinet to review and widen the terms of reference of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the causes of Teoh’s death to command public confidence in public institutions and the Prime Minister.

The contention by the Attorney-General Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail that an inquest by the magistrate under the Criminal Procedure Code (CPC) was the right recourse, as the CPC was a specific legislation that made provision for a death inquiry, and that “holding a similar inquiry by the royal commission would be duplicitous in such instance” is totally unpersuasive and unconvincing.

In the first place, the Attorney-General should brush up his command of the English language. “Duplicitous” is derived from “duplicity” described as “double-dealing, deceitfulness” (Oxford Compact English Dictionary) What Gani intends to say is “duplication”.

Gani referred to Section 2 of the Commissions of Enquiry Act 1950 to buttress his contention claiming that it “clearly makes reference to the inquiry into the conduct and management of government officers and departments or for the public welfare”.

Section 2(1) of Commissions of Enquiry Act 1950 reads:
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