Teoh’s Tiger baby to be born next week

Soh Cher Wei (right) seen here with the late Teoh Beng Hock's parents in this file photo. - Picture by Jack Ooi

By Debra Chong- The Malaysian Insider

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 19 — Teoh Beng Hock’s family will have something to celebrate in the Year of the Tiger with the birth of his child next week.

“It’s a boy,” Teoh’s younger sister told The Malaysian Insider.

“He’s due to be born next week. His name is yet to be decided by Cher Wei and my parents,” Lee Lan said in a text message yesterday.

The 30-year-old political aide to a Selangor executive councillor had fathered a child with his long-time sweetheart Soh Cher Wei last year.

The couple was due to register their marriage on July 17 when he fell to his untimely death the day before after a night of questioning by anti-graft officers at their headquarters in Shah Alam.

Soh, 28, a primary school teacher, has turned down interview requests following her induction ceremony into the Teoh family last October, asking for privacy.

But Soh is likely to deliver her baby in her hometown Batu Pahat, Johor where she lives with her parents and younger siblings. The Teohs hail from Alor Gajah in Malacca.

The matter of “Baby Teoh” bearing the father’s name on the birth certificate, however, is still undetermined.

Laws in Malaysia require proof that both parents are married or in a case where a child is born out of wedlock, the father must be physically present, in order for the birth certificate issued to carry the father’s name.

While Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak is reported to have personally assured the Teohs and Soh and directed the Attorney-General to help the family last year, it is not the policy of the National Registration Department to register the father’s name for a baby born out of wedlock.

Attempts to get further details from Lee Lan mostly went unanswered. The Selangor-based auditor only added: “Will attend Dr Shahidan’s testimony tomorrow.”

Teoh’s death is the subject of an ongoing inquest, which will resume today with Hospital Sungai Buloh chief pathologist Dr Shahidan Md Noor taking the stand.

Dr Shahidan had carried out a second autopsy last November.

The coroner’s court ordered Teoh to be exhumed for a second check after a Thai forensic expert raised doubts over the first-time father’s death from a fall.

Dr Pornthip Rojanasunand, director of the Bangkok-based Central Institute of Forensic Science, had been engaged by the Selangor government.

Earlier in her court testimony, she said Teoh was likely a victim of homicide, contradicting the findings of two pathologists who performed the first autopsy.