Custom officer’s widow, son sue MACC for ‘unlawful killing’

KUALA LUMPUR, April 4 — As the spotlight falls on Malaysia’s custodial death record, the family of Ahmad Sarbaini Mohamad filed a civil suit today against the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) and seven of its officials.

The late Customs officer’s widow, Masiah@Maziah Manap, 53, and son Shahril Ahmad Sarbaini, 30 insisted that his death three years ago was not an accident as ruled by a coroner but an “unlawful killing”.

Ahmad Sarbani, 56, a Selangor Customs assistant director, was found dead on the first floor of the Kuala Lumpur MACC building in Jalan Cochrane here on April 6, 2011.

“I am convinced he is not guilty. That is why I filed this today,” Masiah told reporters at the court complex here after filing the suit.

The teary-eyed widow did not elaborate but her husband had been hauled up for questioning by MACC officials investigating corruption allegations against the Royal Malaysian Customs.

The filing named six MACC officials, the anti-graft body’s chief commissioner Datuk Seri Abu Kassim Mohamed, MACC itself and the government as defendants.

The family’s lawyer, N Surendran said the family was seeking at least RM8 million in accumulative damages.

The lawyer said missing surveillance recordings from the day at the MACC office and the commission’s subsequent response raised questions over its role in Sarbaini’s death.

“The defendants also refused to give access or inform the plaintiffs on how he died,” the lawyer said.

Assistant director Sarbaini had been a witness in the high-profile raid on the Customs Department carried out by MACC back in 2011.

He was found dead at the MACC’s office in Kuala Lumpur, having turned up there earlier on April 6, 2011 as a witness to the probe.

He had been left alone in an interview room at the office in Jalan Cochrane here, before being discovered in a pool of his own blood at a badminton court several floors down.

A coroner’s inquest later found his death to be an accident, after ruling out suicide and foul play.

Coroner Aizatul Akmal Maharani judged that Sarbaini’s mental state had been affected by the guilt of his previous admission to bribery.

The verdict was rejected by Sarbaini’s family, who have called on Putrajaya to establish a Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) into his death.