SHAH ALAM, Sept 9 — He was handcuffed and taken into a dark room where he saw a tall man with spectacles wrapping an iron ceiling rod in newspapers.
He was told to strip. Several men assaulted him. He was hit with the metal rod, punched, kicked, slapped and caned on his genitals and the soles of his feet until he passed out from the pain.
Sivanesan Tanggavelu, 22, who stepped into the witness box at today’s inquest into the death of political secretary Teoh Beng Hock gave a highly-graphic account of his experience at the hands of the Selangor graft busters.
The assistant manager of a Kuantan-based company recounted how he was met at home on Sept 4 last year by three men who said they were anti-graft officers and requested his help in an investigation.
He followed them to their office on the 14th-floor of Plaza Masalam here and tried to get him to sign a document admitting guilt.
When he refused, one of them, whom he called “Mohan”, told him in Tamil: “If you don’t tell the truth, this place will be hell.”
The 22-year-old was introduced today as a new witness into the inquest of Teoh Beng Hock who fell to his death on July 16 after being interrogated overnight by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) office on the 14th-floor of Plaza Masalam here.
Lawyer for the MACC, Datuk Abdul Razak Musa had objected strongly this morning to admitting Sivanesan’s testimony as well as police report on the assault.
Abdul Razak who had objected to the testimony yesterday when it was to be put to the MACC’s own man, Mohd Ashraf Mohd Yunus, for questioning, maintained his stand.
He said Sivanesan’s report “is not relevant” to Teoh’s inquest because it was too long ago, before the anti-graft agency became the MACC.
Teoh, the political secretary to Selangor state executive councillor Ean Yong Hian Wah was said to be the star witness in an ongoing probe over the abuse of state funds by DAP assemblymen.
The 30-year-old husband-to-be had checked into the office on July 15 but never checked out. His body was found sprawled on a 5th-floor landing of the same building the next day.
It was “sudden death”, the police said initially. Then, two pathologists who carried out the autopsy on Teoh said all the signs point to “suicide”.
But his family and his employer strongly believe foul play is involved. Their lawyers believe the same.
Malik Imtiaz Sarwar, representing the Selangor state government, told the coroner’s court today that the state plans to enter famed Thai pathologist, Dr. Pornthip Rojanasunand, into the witness box next Monday (Sept 14).
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