KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 22 — Thai forensic expert Dr Pornthip Rojanasunand has been barred from entering Malaysia to testify at a negligence suit filed against the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC), the lawyer for Teoh Beng Hock’s family claimed today.

Gobind Singh Deo cited “political interference” as the reason behind the Thai government’s refusal to allow Pornthip to appear before the Malaysian high court as the plaintiff’s main witness.

“We have been informed by Pornthip that she won’t be allowed to testify after the Thai government had barred her from traveling due to political interference,” Gobind, who is also Puchong MP for opposition party the DAP, told The Malay Mail Online.

The family of the former DAP aide, who died mysteriously under MACC’s watch in 2009, had filed a suit against the anti-corruption agency, seeking damages for sadness, loss of dependency and negligence.

The family had argued that the MACC had failed to explain how Teoh was found dead, and claimed the anti-corruption agency’s officers had “wrongfully” attacked the former political aide during interrogation, which they claimed pressured the witness to feel “fear, torment, extreme distress and apprehension of apprehension of immediate physical violence”.

Pornthip had been a key witness for the family after a second post-mortem conducted by her suggested Teoh could have been strangled before falling to his death.

This is the second time the Thai forensic expert has claimed to be a victim of political pressure, the first being when she expressed reluctance to testify further in the inquest into Teoh’s death.

“We will leak the evidence to show that she was not allowed to come,” Gobind said on the matter.

The incident would likely revive speculation of an attempted top-level cover-up of Teoh’s cause of death.

A 2011 Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) set up to probe Teoh’s death following an inconclusive inquest believed the aggressive, relentless and oppressive interrogation by three MACC officers had pressured Teoh into committing suicide.

In July 2009, Beng Hock was interrogated by MACC officers overnight before the 30-year-old groom-to-be was found dead the next day.

The DAP political aide’s body was found on July 16, 2009 at a fifth-floor landing of Shah Alam’s Plaza Masalam, with the Selangor MACC’s office being located on the 14th floor then.

His family have insisted that Teoh’s death was not caused by suicide.