Sangeet said Ling was transported from Johor Bahru to Putrajaya in handcuffs in January, after she was extradited from Singapore, and also spent a night in the MACC lockup.

She said Ling was then served a notice under the anti-money laundering law (AMLA) which clearly stated that she was arrested. She was then remanded for three days and had her phone confiscated.

“Upon the expiry of the three-day remand period, MACC released Ling on bail wherein she was required to pay a sum of RM35,000 and was ordered to report to MACC on a monthly basis.

“MACC also imposed a travel restriction on her and denied her request to go back to her children (in Singapore), even when one of them had been hospitalised.

“MACC did not just ‘call’ Pamela Ling, they hounded her. She was in Malaysia on the orders of the MACC,” the lawyer for Ling’s family said in a statement.

Yesterday, MACC chief commissioner Azam Baki said Ling was not a suspect in its money laundering investigation but a witness.

Azam also told a press conference that the commission “never called her with the intention to arrest her”.

Sangeet claimed that Azam’s statement was misleading and did not help the anti-graft agency’s credibility in the public eye.

The lawyer said MACC’s conduct in Ling’s arrest was unnecessary for a witness, reiterating that the missing woman was treated like a suspect.

She added that the initial arrest warrant MACC obtained against Ling in December as well as the travel restriction imposed the following month was being challenged in the High Court.

Ling, 42, was reported missing on April 9 while on her way to MACC’s headquarters here to give a statement related to an ongoing investigation.

MACC had opened an investigation into her and her husband, Thomas Hah, in May last year for alleged corruption and money laundering offences.