KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 5 — The police will reopen investigations into Teoh Beng Hock’s death in 2009, city police chief Datuk Seri Mohmad Salleh said today after the Court of Appeal declared that the former DAP political aide did not kill himself.
“The court found that an unknown suspect caused Teoh Beng Hock’s fall and subsequent death… with this we will reopen a sudden death report (SDR) and investigate the matter,” the deputy commissioner of police told reporters at a police training centre here.
Malay Mail Online was able to obtain an audio recording of the news conference.
The appellate court unanimously ruled today that Teoh’s was caused by the act of “person or persons unknown”, including the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) officers who had questioned him overnight before he was found dead on July 16.
“We will review the case through the SDR and if need be we will call more witnesses — to ascertain who is the individual involved,” Mohmad said.
Mohmad added that a special team of investigators headed by his deputy, Datuk Amar Singh Ishar Singh, will get down to identifying witnesses in the case soon.
“We will look at the SDR and further deliberate the details we receive, and if there are elements as stated, there is a possibility that the case will be reclassified under 302,” he said referring to Section 302 of the Penal Code for murder.
Court of Appeal Judge Datuk Mah Weng Kwai said the magistrate in the Coroner’s Court and the High Court judge had erred by respectively giving an open verdict and upholding the verdict, pointing out that they had applied the stricter test of beyond reasonable doubt — used in criminal cases.
“We are of the view that the correct verdict to be returned in the inquest is caused by person or persons unknown,” said Mah, one of three judges on the panel.
Mah also ruled out the two other possible verdicts of suicide and death by misadventure or accidental death.
The Court of Appeal then directed the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC) to reopen investigations and to prosecute those responsible for Teoh’s death.
The AGC and the MACC had previously cleared three of its officers of any wrongdoing in the political aide’s death.
Beng Hock’s family have been in and out of the courtrooms over the past five years, after the 30-year-old groom-to-be was found sprawled in a pool of his own blood on the fifth-floor landing of the Plaza Masalam building in Shah Alam on July 16, 2009, days before his wedding.
A Royal Commission of Inquiry into Beng Hock’s death, chaired by now-retired Federal Court judge Tan Sri James Foong Cheng Yuen, later ruled on July 21, 2011 that it was a suicide.
