SHAH ALAM, Aug 26 – The coroner's court ordered part of an anti-graft officer's testimony expunged from the record after he alleged that Teoh Beng Hock and his boss Ean Yong Hian Wah had received kickbacks.
The order came after an outraged Gobind Singh Deo, the lawyer for Teoh's family, called on the coroner to immediately halt the inquest and initiate a "trial within an inquest" into the corruption allegations.
"Let's also make this a corruption trial of Teoh Beng Hock and the DAP," Gobind Singh Deo demansded, startling magistrate, Azmil Muntapha Abas, who is acting as coroner in the inquest.
On his return after calling a short break, Azmil stressed that he was carrying out an inquest, which is clearly outlined in law as "only an inquiry by a magistrate as to the cause of death and the Prosecution Officer is there not to prosecute anyone but only to assist the court with the examinaion of witnesses for the purpose of giving evidence."
He added that the court's duty was to find out six things:
(1)who the deceased was;
(2)how the deceased died;
(3)when the deceased died;
(4)where the deceased died;
(5)what caused the person to die;
(6)who, if any, was/ were the person(s) who carried out the act(s) or
omission(s) causing the death.
Anti-graft investigator Mohd Anuar Ismail, who returned to the witness box for the third day in a row this morning, told the coroner's court that Teoh and his boss, first-term Selangor executive councillor Ean Yong, had received kickbacks totalling thousands of ringgit from several private companies.
He was being quizzed by MACC legal director Datuk Abdul Razak Musa over the Selangor team's investigations into a complaint that DAP state lawmakers were abusing state funds.
Gobind jumped to his feet and objected strongly to the questions aimed at the witness at that point.
He wanted the court to expunge the entire testimony at first, claiming that Abdul Razak, who is holding a watching brief for the MACC in the inquest, had broken their "gentleman's agreement" to limit his questions to four accounting documents, said to be invoices printed from Teoh's laptop before he died.But Gobind changed his stand when Abdul Razak insisted he had confined his questions to what was agreed yesterday.
Abdul Razak said the MACC investigator's testimony was relevant to show Teoh's "state of mind" and that he was not out to "bad mouth" the deceased.
But Gobind was having none of that. And neither were the lawyers for the Bar Council and Ean Yong's counsel, Salim Bashir.
"This is an inquest. My client is not on trial," Salim said loudly.
The lead lawyer for the Attorney-General's Chambers who is helping the coroner in the inquest, Tan Hock Chuan, also stood up and told the magistrate that the matter had gone "a little too far".
He advised the magistrate to take a short break and check the court notes before making his decision.
Teoh fell to his death outside the Malaysian Anti-Corrupton Commission's (MACC) office at Plaza Masalam here on July 16 after a marathon interrogation session that lasted some 10 hours.
He was due to register his marriage to his pregnant fiancée the same day. Two pathologists have concluded that he very likely committed suicide.
COMMENTS
written by Krishna, August 26, 2009
written by ckeong, August 26, 2009
Hishammudin must be susepnd immediately while further investigation by independant body must be carried out immediately to avoid certain quarters using MACC for personal politic agenda. Just delaying the report of a death by few hours is good enough to suspend him, soemone who should protect the law, breaking the law instead !!