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Keeping the Teoh issue alive

©The Star (Used by permission)
ANALYSIS By BARADAN KUPPUSAMY

The decision by Teoh Beng Hock’s family to file for a judicial review will benefit the DAP as it seeks to gain political capital from the circumstances surrounding his death.

TO the DAP, Teoh Beng Hock must be a victim of murder, despite the findings of the Royal Commission of Inquiry which held that he was driven to suicide by the intensive interrogation of three officers from the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission.

The party has benefited from advocating the premise of murder with its secretary-general Lim Guan Eng saying several times that he believed that Teoh was murdered, forestalling any findings otherwise by any competent body.

It has become an article of faith for the DAP. It must be murder and not suicide because the political capital is still there to be reaped and exploited.

Politically, the “murder” has been a rallying cause to galvanise the Chinese community and keep them focused on an issue in which they feel a great injustice has been committed.

The DAP has exploited the issue and kept the flame of “murder” burning throughout the time after Teoh was found dead on the floor of Plaza Masalam in Shah Alam on July 16, 2009.

At the inquest that followed the death, DAP MP for Puchong Gobind Singh Deo led the party’s charge and turned the inquest into a public trial of the MACC and its officers and, in the process, he became an instant hero of the DAP.

Subsequently, when the Royal Commission was instituted, the party boycotted the hearings. Teoh’s family likewise, did not cooperate.

Now that the issue appears to have abated with the general public leaning towards accepting the verdict of the Royal Commission, the DAP has jumped in when Teoh’s family filed an application for a judicial review of the commission’s findings.

The move is aimed at keeping the matter in the public eye at least until the next general election where the DAP can campaign by telling voters it has not given up on Teoh but is pressing ahead to set aside the commission’s findings.

Messrs Karpal Singh and his son Gobind Singh Deo, acting on behalf of Teoh’s brother Meng Kee, has filed the application for a judicial review.

Presumably, the family also wants a judicial review of the findings as it is unhappy with the commission’s findings of suicide as the most plausible, although Teoh was driven to it by MACC officers.

The party’s stand is that Teoh was murdered. The murderer or murderers must be identified and punished and until that is done, the DAP will always bring up the case in ceramah and other political functions and talk about the “injustices” of the case.

The inquest had returned a verdict of neither suicide nor murder leaving the question of how he died, open.

As promised, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak then set up the Royal Commission of Inquiry to look into ways and means of making the MACC more accountable to the public.

He also wanted the commission to determine the cause of Teoh’s death and if possible to apportion blame to any individuals or officers of the MACC.

The DAP holds that the RCI was proposed by Najib to whitewash the “murder” of Teoh. It’s is also an article of faith for the party that the Government can do no right.

Nor can government servants i.e. judges, its forensic experts and chemists simply do their professional jobs but rather they serve a big, insidious master, the Barisan Nasional, which is bent on returning a verdict of suicide.

The commission, in its 24-page report, found that Teoh was driven to commit suicide by “aggressive, relentless, oppressive and unscrupulous” interrogation by three MACC officers.

The DAP’s argument hinges on why a man, who was soon to get married and had everything to look forward to, would want to commit suicide. It does not seem logical.

However it is well known that intensive, unsettling interrogation can turn any sane man into a potential suicide victim.

Intensive interrogation can have a debilitating effect on a person. Some men would consider suicide an honourable exit.

Although the commission’s findings implicated three MACC officers, no action has been taken as yet.

This failure fuels the feeling of grievance and helps to shore up perception that the system looks after its own.

The DAP is thus doing what all good political parties the world over do in democratic societies – it is keeping the issue alive because it can exploit it further, tap into real societal grievances and provide political leadership.

Instead of accepting the Royal Commission’s findings, it has sought to keep the Teoh Beng Hock issue alive, by filing for a judicial review.

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