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Thursday, 13 January 2011

King to have a look at RCI names first, says PM

The Star
by MAZWIN NIK ANIS

PUTRAJAYA: The names of members of the Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) into the Teoh Beng Hock case will be made public after they are presented to the Yang di-Pertuan Agong Tuanku Mizan Zainal Abidin.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak said the government was going through some names for the Commission.

“There is a process. We are going through some names. I am not able to seek an audience with the Yang di-Pertuan Agong as he is overseas,” he said when asked if the RCI members would be named yesterday.

The Prime Minister, when announcing the setting up of the RCI, had said its chairman and members would be named after yesterday’s Cabinet meeting.

The RCI is to determine if there was any abuse in procedures by the Malaysia Anti-Corruption Commi-ssion in handling the case and if there was a violation of Teoh’s human rights.

The Attorney-General had also applied to the High Court for a revision of the Coroner Court’s open verdict on the political aide’s death.

The two-pronged approach is in line with the Government’s effort to get to the truth about how Teoh died on July 16, 2009.

On another matter, Najib said the Cabinet wanted the Indian community to engage in a dialogue with the Education Ministry to look at how best to ease the tension caused by the controversial novel, Interlok.

He said the Cabinet had asked that a few individuals among the community be selected to discuss the matter.

“It was discussed by the Cabinet but we have not reached any decision yet. We want a discussion to look at how we can ease the situation and unhappiness among the community,” he added.

The move to make the novel a literature text caused controversy when several quarters claimed that it contained elements deemed offensive to the Indian community.

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