KUALA LUMPUR – Putrajaya should make it easier for the public to submit memorandums to the government, said DAP lawmaker RSN Rayer after a scuffle between police and Teoh Beng Hock’s family members near the entrance of the Parliament building here.
Rayer told Dewan Rakyat that the government should not forget cases, such as the death of former political aide Teoh Beng Hock 15 years ago, and give them adequate attention.
“I am aware that the YAB Tambun is someone who can sympathise with cases like these since he was a victim of violence,” he said, referring to the police violence endured by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim when he was in custody in 1998.
This morning, Beng Hock’s sister Teoh Lee Lan was intercepted by the police who had formed a human barrier about 100m before the entrance.
Lee Lan had led a group of 30 people during the final leg of the Walk of Justice organised by the Teoh Beng Hock Association for Democratic Advancement (TBH-ADA) to demand justice for his death.
Teoh’s body was found on the fifth-floor landing of Plaza Masalam in Shah Alam on the morning of July 16, 2009, after being questioned overnight by Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) officers at their office on the 14th floor.
At the time of his death, Teoh was the political aide to the then-Selangor executive councillor Ean Yong, who was also DAP’s Seri Kembangan assemblyman.
In 2011, a royal commission of inquiry established to investigate Teoh’s death concluded that he had been driven to commit suicide due to the aggressive nature of MACC’s questioning.
The appellate court, in 2014, then ruled that Teoh’s death was caused by the act of “a person or persons unknown”, including officers from the anti-graft agency who grilled him before he was found dead.
In June 2022, the Kuala Lumpur High Court granted Teoh’s parents – father Teoh Leong Hwee and mother Teng Shuw Hoi – leave to initiate judicial review proceedings to compel the police to complete investigations into their son’s death.
TBH-ADA had staged a protest demanding accountability for Teoh’s death in Kuala Kubu Baharu in May in the hopes of bringing their cause to politicians campaigning in the by-election.
However, the group’s chairman Ng Yap Hwa and Lee Lan were investigated as some of their material were deemed illegal.
Housing and Local Government Minister Nga Kor Ming has since asked Home Minister Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail to request that police halt the investigation into the matter. – July 15, 2024