Dzulkifli Ahmad said it was a cause for concern that Ling’s lawyer had revealed that her client was called in and had her statement recorded on nine separate occasions after being released from remand.
He said that once someone was arrested and their statement taken, the law only allowed further questioning if they were reclassified as a witness, and that too only with the approval of the deputy public prosecutor.
“Under the MACC Act and established legal procedure, it is a fundamental principle of due process that the power of arrest should only be exercised when sufficient evidence has been gathered to support a formal charge.
“Arrests made prematurely – at a stage where investigations are still in progress – may not only be unjustified but also risk contravening both the rule of law and the core tenets of justice,” he said in a statement today.
Dzulkifli said MACC should emulate its own approach in other high-profile cases, such as those involving former prime minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob and business figures like Vivy Yusof, where no arrests were made during investigations.
“These examples reflect a more measured and lawful approach that should be consistently applied,” he said, adding that all enforcement agencies, including MACC, must follow due process to protect individuals’ rights and ensure justice.
Earlier today, Sangeet Kaur Deo said Ling had claimed that she had been arrested and remanded without a proper legal basis and in breach of due process.
Sangeet said the travel ban, imposed since October, and the repeated questioning reflected treatment that was “far from ordinary and totally inconsistent” with that expected of a witness assisting in investigations.
She added that after relentlessly pursuing Ling, MACC had remained silent about her disappearance.
MACC released a detailed chronology of its investigation into Ling and Hah this afternoon, which revealed that Ling had previously refused to cooperate in a graft probe and was arrested in Singapore before being returned to Malaysia.
Ling reportedly went missing on April 9 while on her way to the MACC headquarters to give her statement.
Her brother, Simon Ling, claimed his sister was abducted. He said the e-hailing car in which Ling was travelling was intercepted by three unidentified vehicles and that she was instructed to get into one of them.
Yesterday, the e-hailing driver who took Ling to the MACC headquarters on April 9 said he was forced to mark the ride as completed after Ling was taken by her abductors, who were wearing police uniforms and vests.