MACC officers abused power and violated human rights

The royal commission of inquiry reported today Teoh Beng Hock was broken by three senior investigation officers it referred to as “Arman the bully, Ashraf the abuser and Hishammuddin Hashim the arrogant leader.”

It also concluded that most MACC officers in its Selangor office were prone to lying.

The trio are the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) then state deputy director Hishammuddin Hashim, officers Arman Alies and Mohd Ashraf Mohd Yunus, who were among a number of investigators named in the commission’s report as having broken Teoh Beng Hock during a four-stage torturing kind of interrogation.

The royal commission fully described these officers as follows:

“Arman the bully” would “manipulate his witness to obtain evidence,” and “Ashraf the abuser.” it said, was described as Machiavellian in his method to secure evidence.

But what was most damning in the report’s assessment of MACC methods was their description of Hishammuddin.

“Hishammuddin the arrogant leader who would have no qualms about lying as long as his ends were achieved, regardless of the means employed,” the report said.

As a boss, Hishammuddin was also said to instill fear among his officers. Under Hishammuddin, most officers also had the inevitable habit of lying, the report concluded.

The report shows that there are clear power abuses and violation of human rights when the interrogation proceedings took place. Furthermore, these MACC officers were also found to had lied so many times during the hearings of the magistrate inquest and the recently concluded royal commission of inquiry hearings.

These MACC officers are indeed professional liars and master manipulator, abuser and cheater to the fact that they all had given contradicting statements in both of the hearings and had been ticked off by even the commission chairman Mr Justice Tan Sri James Foong.

Apart from that the inquiry also found that these MACC officers had launched the investigation without proper case filing and their "case" was solely depending on the informant's mere belief which had no supporting facts at all to justify it as a hard case.

So, is the MACC acting professionally? Are they acting based on their professionalism or politically motivated? It looks like they were acting in a political motivation and the objective of their alleged "investigation" were full of hatred and desire for revenge.

The other issue that the royal commission of inquiry did not uncover at all was, who open that window which had deliberately caused the death of Beng Hock? Another questionable and doubtful one was, why did the senior MACC officers, particularly the state MACC deputy director Hishammuddin concealed the death of Beng Hock for so long and failed to report the death to the police immediately after his body was discovered?

They are still so many gaps, and the inquiry cannot just conclude that Beng Hock really did "committed suicide". There is no 100 percent surety to fully describe it as a suicide. One of the three MACC officers described above might be the murderer or somehow who had accidentally caused the death or might have been intentionally did so in anger for failing to obtain any "evidence" to engineer the downfall of the Selangor state government.

Lastly, judging from the characteristics mentioned by the inquiry above, we also learned that these MACC officers were not properly questioned and queried on their possible political influence, their allegiance to certain political parties, their family backgrounds and their affiliation to certain interests groups that may had influenced or jeopardized their professionalism when discharging their duties as enforcement and investigation officers.

Anyway, the entire proceedings to probe who is the murderer of Beng Hock had came to an end and the report had been released to the public. MACC needs a total revamp and restructuring in its entire organization, its personnel, training, methods, its records and finally, how can it regain the public confidence onto its own integrity.

To be par with the Hong Kong's renowned Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) as mentioned by MACC previously, don't ever dream of it. MACC would never ever achieve to that level for a very long time.

Stop your day dreaming then!