The Malaysian Insight

ALTANTUYA Shaariibuu, Teoh Beng Hock and Anthony Kevin Morais. These are some of the murder cases that Putrajaya needs to relook, said Kepong MP Lim Lip Eng.

He said investigations into Teoh’s death should also be reopened despite earlier findings that he allegedly committed suicide.

“Whoever killed Teoh Beng Hock should be charged in court,” Lip Eng said today.

“The whole lot. Whoever killed Teoh Beng Hock, Altantuya (Shaariibuu), Kevin Morais and all the other (alleged) murders. They should be re-investigated. Reopen the cases.”

Lip Eng was one of several lawyers who represented Teoh’s family in a government inquest on his death in 2009.

Last Wednesday DAP stalwart Lim Kit Siang demanded that Teoh’s case be reopened after former deputy prime minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said Malaysians should respect MACC’s investigative process.

“If this rule had been strictly observed, Teoh Beng Hock would not have died at the Selangor MACC premises in Shah Alam on July 16, 2009, and still be awaiting justice nearly nine years later – the reason why the Teoh Beng Hock case, like many other cases of injustices resulting in death, should be re-opened for justice to be finally done,” Kit Siang said.

Teoh was found dead on the fifth floor of the MACC office after being questioned for about 11 hours as a witness in a case of alleged misappropriation of allocations for several state assemblymen.

He was the political secretary to former Selangor state executive councillor Ean Yong Hian Wah.

In 2011, a royal commission of inquiry concluded that Teoh was not murdered but had committed suicide due to the “aggressive interrogation” tactics by three MACC officers. Teoh’s family rejected the findings and insisted he was murdered.

Further calls have been made to reopen investigations into other unresolved murders as well.

Following his release two weeks ago, Pakatan Harapan (PH) de facto leader Anwar Ibrahim called for former Malaysian police officer Sirul Azhar Umar to be brought back to Malaysia to answer for Altantuya’s murder.

Sirul fled to Brisbane, Australia in October 2014 after being sentenced to hang for the killing of the Mongolian model, in a scandal linked to the then defence minister Najib Razak.

Sirul, who is now in Australian custody, has claimed he was ordered by “important people” to murder Altantuya and offered to speak more if he was given a full pardon. The offer was spurned by PH lawmakers.

Altantuya, 28, was shot dead and her body blown up with military-grade plastic explosives outside Kuala Lumpur in October 18, 2014.

Meanwhile, new MACC chief Mohd Shukri Abdull denied last Tuesday that Morais’ murder had anything to do with the 1Malaysia Development Bhd scandal.

Shukri told reporters that his case was linked to Colonel Dr Kunasegaran, the chief pathologist at the Tuanku Mizan Military Hospital, who was facing property abuse and corruption charges.

Morais’ body was found in a drum filled with concrete at Persiaran Subang Mewah, Subang Jaya on September 16, 2015. No one has been charged for his murder. – May 27, 2018.