DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng, who is finance minister, said it was now up to Attorney-General Tommy Thomas to order investigations to be resumed.
“The Cabinet asked for a probe so that we can give justice to the family. The reason for reopening the investigations is because there is a need to know the cause of death,” he said at DAP headquarters here today.
With him was Beng Hock’s younger sister, Teoh Lee Lan; her former lawyer, Gobind Singh Deo; DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang and other MPs.
Lim said Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad has agreed and endorsed the reopening of the investigations. Gobind, who is now communications and multimedia minister, said the Cabinet would convey the message to Tommy.
Gobind said there was room for the case to be re-examined from different angles, as the previous investigations had seemed insufficient.
“The AG has the power to send the file to the police to ask for further investigation. We will indicate that the Cabinet has agreed that the case be reopened.”
He said it was up to the attorney-general to decide whether to reopen the case. The case file was with the AG’s Chambers, and he hoped Tommy would send the file to the police because of a lack of public confidence in an inquiry held in 2011 into Beng Hock’s death.
Beng Hock’s sister, Lee Lan, who was almost in tears, thanked the new government and urged the attorney-general to reopen the case so that the person responsible would be identified.
Last month, Lim Kit Siang had called for the reopening of cases of injustice which had resulted in death, including Beng Hock’s case. Lee Lan hoped the government would implement institutional reforms to end such deaths.
Beng Hock was a political aide to DAP assemblyman Ean Yong Hian Wah. He was taken in by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission on July 15, 2009 for questioning about alleged fraudulent disbursement of constituency allocations.
His body was found the next morning on a rooftop adjacent to the MACC office in Shah Alam.
A royal commission of inquiry set up to investigate Beng Hock’s death concluded in 2011 that he had been driven to commit suicide and blamed intensive interrogation by three MACC officers.