CAN SOMEONE SUSPECTED OF INVOLVEMENT IN MURDER BE PROMOTED? Beng Hock's family 'saddened' by MACC officer’s promotion

The family of Teoh Beng Hock said it is unacceptable and disappointing that a Malaysian Anti-Corruption Agency (MACC) officer involved in questioning the DAP political aide who was found dead hours later has been promoted.

His sister, Lee Lan, said they were very sad and disappointed when they heard investigating officer Mohd Anuar Ismail, who was at Grade 44 in 2009, is now at Grade 48.

"It was very unreasonable, ridiculous and unacceptable. In any country, any officer suspected of being involved in a murder case would not be promoted," she said outside the Parliament building today.

Anuar was part of the investigating team which questioned Teoh, who was the political secretary to Selangor executive councillor Ean Yong Hian Wah, over claims that his boss was abusing state funds.

Teoh, 30, was found sprawled on the roof at the fifth floor of Plaza Masalam in Shah Alam on July 16, 2009, after he was questioned overnight by MACC officers at their then Selangor office on the 14th floor.

A coroner's inquest into his death gave an open verdict, with coroner Azmil Muntapha Abas ruling that Teoh's death was neither homicide nor suicide.

Public anger over the coroner’s open verdict led to the government setting up an RCI to probe into Teoh’s death and MACC’s investigative methods.

Following the RCI's findings, Teoh's family applied to the courts to revise the coroner's open verdict and last September, the Court of Appeal set aside the verdict, ruling that "a person or persons were responsible for Teoh’s death".

In a parliamentary reply to Teo Nie Ching (DAP-Kulai) two days ago, minister in the prime minister's department Datuk Paul Low said Anuar had been promoted while two other officers who were also part of the team, and who were named in an inquiry report on Teoh's death, were not promoted.

A tearful Lee Lan who came to Parliament today with her parents to seek justice for her brother and submitted a memorandum to Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Datuk Seri Shahidan Kassim urging Putrajaya to look for his killers.

They also stopped MCA president Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai and his deputy Datuk Wee Ka Siong, urging the Chinese party to fulfil its pledge to ensure Teoh's killer or killers were brought to justice.

"Wee promised he will do his best and we hope he can fulfil the promise," she said.

Teoh's mother Teng Shwu Hoi told Wee in Chinese that the family could not accept the circumstances surrounding his death.

"We cannot accept how a healthy person who went into MACC to help facilitate investigations returned to us a corpse.

"We have waited for justice for five years, how long more we have to wait? Do you understand how hurt we are?" -TMI