Sangeet, who represents Ling’s family, said it had been 33 days since the woman’s disappearance, yet the anti-graft agency had not offered “any real account” of its actions in the weeks leading up to the day she went missing.
“An immediate, independent, and transparent investigation into MACC’s role is essential,” she said in a statement.
Last Wednesday, former MACC chief Dzulkifli Ahmad raised concerns about the integrity and legality of the graft and money laundering investigation into Ling and her husband Hah Tiing Siu.
Dzulkifli 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 once someone is arrested and their statement taken, the law only allows further questioning if they are reclassified as a witness, and that too only with the approval of the deputy public prosecutor.
MACC released a detailed chronology of its investigation into Ling and Hah on May 7, showing that Ling had previously refused to cooperate in a graft probe and was arrested in Singapore before being returned to Malaysia.
Sangeet today said that MACC must explain who gave the order to pursue Ling, why she was repeatedly pressed on personal matters unrelated to MACC’s legal authority, and why no arrest warrant was issued when Ling stopped reporting to the agency.
She claimed that MACC had aggressively pried into a matter involving Hah for allegedly fraudulently transferring company shares and forging Ling’s signature – a case that is now before the Singapore High Court.
Sangeet also claimed that MACC had failed to mention how its officers served notices improperly through Ling’s father and used an arrest warrant related to a case which had been settled months before, to lure her from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur.
She said Malaysians deserved a corruption-fighting institution that commands trust, not one that fuels mistrust by “retreating into silence when transparency is most needed”.
Sangeet previously questioned whether MACC had filed a missing person’s report on Ling after her no-show at its headquarters.
Ling went missing on April 9 while en route to the MACC headquarters to give her statement.
Her brother, Simon, claimed that 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.