DAP knows Teoh committed suicide’

Independent MP Wee Choo Keong claims this prompted DAP to withdraw from the royal commission of inquiry.

KUALA LUMPUR: DAP has chosen to withdraw from the Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) into Teoh Beng Hock’s death because it knows he committed suicide, claimed an independent MP today. Wee Choo Keong alleged that DAP “inside sources” informed him that Teoh, a former DAP political aide, had killed himself and was not murdered.

“According to my sources, DAP is afraid of the RCI’s outcome, because they know about this case,” the Wangsa Maju MP told a press conference at the Konsensus Bebas office here.

“They knew this was a case involving suicide,” added the former DAP and PKR member.

Asked if Teoh’s family might have known about his alleged suicide, Wee replied: “I don’t know about the family. But the DAP side knew about it. Otherwise, why did they pull out?”
On why DAP would withdraw from the inquiry when its leaders, including Lim Kit Siang, were pushing for it, Wee said: “Perhaps DAP did not expect the government to go ahead in setting up the RCI to look into Teoh’s death.”

Wee’s startling revelation comes amid the ongoing inquiry to establish Teoh’s cause of death, after an inquest held into the case saw the coroner ruling out both suicide and homicide.
Teoh was found dead in July, 2009, after being interrogated overnight by Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) officials at Plaza Masalam in Shah Alam.
Citing a lack of confidence in the RCI, both the Selangor government and Teoh’s family pulled out from the inquiry.

‘Why would MACC harm him?’

Meanwhile, Wee also attacked Teoh’s family lawyer, Karpal Singh, for questioning RCI chairman James Foong’s status.

Earlier this month, Karpal filed an application for Foong to recuse himself from the RCI as he was still a Federal Court judge.

“This is a lame reason, one you cannot accept professionally,” said Wee, who is a lawyer.
“If you ask Foong to recuse himself, we must give proof why he is not qualified to be chairman. But there is none, except that he is still a Federal Court judge,” he added.

Wee said that it was not wrong for a working judge to head a RCI.

“It is not a requirement for an inquiry chairman to be someone who is not a fielding judge. You already have this in the UK or in other Commonwealth countries. We can see clearly, how many inquiries still have working judges,” he added.

Wee also said that he found it hard to believe that MACC would harm its own witness.
“If that is the case, then MACC should be disbanded. How can you kill someone that lays the golden egg?” he asked, referring to the possibility of using Teoh’s testimony to prosecute opposition leaders. (By Patrick Lee)