PUTRAJAYA: The public has to trust the findings of the Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) over Teoh Beng Hock’s cause of death, said Transparency International-Malaysia (TIM) president, Datuk Paul Low.
“We have to trust the findings of the RCI because it is properly constituted with people of integrity,” he told reporters on the sidelines of the Corporate Integrity System in Malaysia workshop held here yesterday.
The RCI established as suicide the death of the political aide whose body was found at a building in Shah Alam where he had been questioned by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) in July 2009.
The conclusions of the RCI is contained in a 124-page report of the five-member panel headed by Federal Court Judge Tan Sri James Foong Cheng Yuen.
The report was released yesterday.
The other members of the panel were former Federal Court judge Datuk Abdul Kadir Sulaiman, former Appeals Court judge Datuk T Selventhiranathan, Penang Hospital forensic pathologist Datuk Dr Bhupinder Singh and Prof Dr Mohamed Hatta Shaharom, forensic pyschiatrist and dean of the medical faculty of University College of Medical Sciences, Cyberjaya.
However, Low said the way of interrogation by the MACC needed to be revamped.
“It is to make sure it is done in a professional and proper manner,” he said.
“If they violate the SOPs (standard operating procedures), then under the disciplinary procedures of the MACC, they have to take a proper action,” he said referring to the MACC officers who interrogated Teoh.
Low was referring to findings in the report that Teoh was driven to committing suicide because of the harsh methods used by MACC officers who interrogated him.
Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak announced on Jan 26 the setting up of the RCI to, among others, determine the cause of Teoh’s death after the Shah Alam Coroner’s Court delivered an open verdict following an inquest.
Teoh, 30, the political secretary to Selangor State Executive Councillor Ean Yong Hian Wah, was found dead on the fifth floor corridor of Plaza Masalam, on July 16, 2009, after giving a statement at the Selangor MACC office located on the 14th floor of the same building. — Bernama