MACC trio to face disciplinary action

The Sun 
by Hemananthani Sivanandam

KUALA LUMPUR (June 27, 2012): Almost a year after a royal commission of inquiry implicated three of its officers in the death of political aide Teoh Beng Hock, the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) has finally decided on the disciplinary action to take against them.

MACC chief commissioner Datuk Seri Abu Kassim Mohamed said the commission would first make its recommendations to its complaints committee before announcing the action.

The three officers are the then Selangor MACC deputy director Hishamuddin Hashim (now Negri Sembilan MACC director), as well as enforcement officers Mohd Anuar Ismail and Mohd Ashraf Yunus.

“We have decided what disciplinary action to take. We will inform the (complaints committee) in its next meeting,” said Abu Kassim in a press conference after handing over the commission’s annual report to members of the Special Committee on Corruption in Parliament today.

Asked when the complaints committee will be meeting next, Abu Kassim said that he has to check as it is an independent committee.

“Let us finalise this at the complaints committee first. We will inform them first, then we will announce,” he said.

The MACC’s decision comes almost three years after the death of Teoh, 30, whose body was found on the landing of Plaza Masalam in Shah Alam, the MACC’s headquarters at the time, the day after he was interrogated overnight on July 16, 2009.

A 17-month-long inquest into the political aide’s death returned an open verdict, while a royal commission of inquiry (RCI) concluded in its report on July 21 last year that Teoh was not murdered but had committed suicide due to the aggressive interrogation tactics by three MACC officers.

The trio were suspended from their duties last year after being named in the RCI report, but Abu Kassim in April confirmed that they had been transferred out of the Selangor MACC office.

Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz had in March reportedly said that the three officers had been cleared of any criminal wrongdoing by the Attorney-General’s Chambers.

Nazri said this was done after the AG’s Chambers examined the outcome of evidence from the police who investigated the three, based on evidence adduced during the inquest and RCI set up to investigate Teoh’s death in 2009.