KUALA LUMPUR, June 21 ― Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) officers must be prosecuted for the 2010 custodial death of a Customs officer now that the courts have found the agency negligent in the case, said Datuk A. Samad Said.
Samad, who heads the Teoh Beng Hock Trust for Democracy (TBH Trust), said the financial compensation won by the family of Selangor Customs assistant director Ahmad Sarbaini Mohamed should not be the end of the matter.
“The irresponsible public institution and those officers involved must be held accountable for two consecutive deaths in its premises in 2009 and 2010, that is, Teoh Beng Hock and Ahmad Sarbani.
“TBH Trust urges the government to initiate prosecution against the MACC officers who were involved in causing the death of Ahmad Sarbani for culpable homicide under Section 304a of the Penal Code,” he said in a statement.
The Court of Appeal yesterday awarded RM 213,000 in damages to Ahmad Sarbani's family, after finding the MACC negligent in its investigation of the Customs officer, leading to his death.
The TBH Trust is named after the late Teoh Beng Hock, a DAP aide who died while in the custody of the MACC in 2009.
The appellate court yesterday overturned a High Court ruling last year that dismissed the family’s wrongful death suit against the agency with costs, saying the MACC should have guarded Ahmad Sarbaini the entire time he was in their custody.
Ahmad Sarbaini, then a 56-year-old Selangor Customs assistant director, was found dead on the first floor of the Kuala Lumpur MACC building in Jalan Cochrane on April 6, 2011.
His family then sued the MACC, the government, the MACC chief commissioner, director Mohamed Yussuf Akope and five officers over his death.
