Graft busters beat me up, says new witness

SHAH ALAM, Sept 9 — He was handcuffed and taken into a dark room where he saw a tall man with spectacles wrapping an iron rod in newspapers.

He was told to strip and blindfolded. Several men assaulted him. He was hit with the metal rod, punched, kicked, slapped all over and even caned on his gentitals and the soles of his feet until he passed out from the pain.

Sivanesan Tanggavelu remembers clearly his encounter with officers from the national anti-graft agency.

He still has the white underwear, the only stitch of clothing he was allowed to wear, from that assault.

Pulling it out from his pants pocket, where it was wrapped in an orange plastic bag, he lifted it up and showed the coroner’s court three gaping tears at the crotch area, the anal area and on the top right corner just below the waistband, said to have been caused by the beatings.

The 22-year-old was introduced today as a new witness into the inquest of Teoh Beng Hock, a DAP political secretary fell to his death on July 16 after being interrogated overnight by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) office on the 14th-floor of Plaza Masalam here.

Under questioning from lawyer Gobind Singh Deo, the assistant manager of a Kuantan-based company recounted how he was met at home on Sept 4 last year by three men who said they were anti-graft officers and requested his help in an investigation.

He followed them to their office on the 14th-floor of Plaza Masalam here where they tried to get him to sign a document admitting guilt.

When he refused, one of them, whom he called “Mohan” told him in Tamil: “If you don’t tell the truth, this place will be hell.”

He told the coroner’s court he was assaulted by between 10 to 15 men, which he did not name in his Sept 11, 2008 police report lodged against the national anti-graft agency — ACA, as it was known then — that first night.

But he said he learnt some of their names later. One of them, he said was “Ashraf”, which he recently recognised from reading newspaper reports on Teoh’s inquest.

He said “Ashraf” was the person who had caned his genitals while his hands and feet were bound by cuffs, all the while calling him racist and derogatory names.

Gobind stands with the new witness Sivanesan (left), who came forward to allege torture and abuse at the hands of anti-graft officers last year. — Picture by Jack Ooi

Apart from the two officers named earlier, Sivanesan remembers hearing five others: Zulkifli who had introduced himself when met at his home, “J”, Sachi, Raymond and Hairul Nizam.

He remembers the officers stopping briefly and hurriedly telling him to get dressed when another man entered the room.

But any relief he may have felt was cut short when the new man asked: “Continue the interrogation. Why have you stopped?”

The new man was said to be the deputy director, Sivanesan told the court.

His nightmare did not end there. The assault continued the next day and night.

He was taken to a corridor in the morning, where he saw a window at the end, and repeatedly beat-up by the tall man in glasses, assisted by two or three others.

He heard one officer ask another if the deputy director was in. The other replied he was but that he had given “permission” the previous night.

Each time, he was bashed till he passed out.

He remembers the first two instances when he came to, he found a piece of ice wrapped in plastic inside his underwear, pressed against his genitals. Once, he was given some ointment to rub.

Unable to withstand the pain, he finally signed the document. The beatings stopped after that.

He was released on Sept 9 last year. He snapped photos of his injuries the next day before filing a police report against the anti-graft agency on Sept 11. He was admitted to the Klang general hospital on Sept 12 where he spent the next four days in bed due to his injuries, including to the kidneys.

Lawyer for the MACC, Datuk Abdul Razak Musa had objected strongly this morning to admitting Sivanesan’s testimony as well as police report on the assault in spite of the magistrate’s ruling to allow the materials.

He had also objected to the testimony yesterday when it was to be put to the MACC’s own man, Mohd Ashraf Mohd Yunus, for questioning.

Then, he argued that Sivanesan’s statement and police report was “not relevant” to finding out how Teoh died because the case was a year old, did not name any of the officers alleged to have assaulted him, and had different circumstances as Sivanesan was a suspect while Teoh was called in as a witness.

Abdul Razak added that if it was to be tendered as evidence, it should rightly be entered through the appropriate witness.

But the MACC legal director argued today that Sivanesan’s testimony was prejudiced against the MACC even before the man took to the witness stand.

He added that magistrate Azmil Muntapha Abas, who is acting as coroner, had agreed with him that the testimony was not relevant to Teoh’s inquest.

Lawyers for the Teoh family and the state government, Gobind and Malik Imtiaz Sarwar respectively, were outraged at what they said was an attempt by Abdul Razak to mislead the court.

Gobind went a step further and likened Abdul Razak’s arguments to contempt of court.

The arguments quickly spiralled into a long-drawn out squabble, which ended with Abdul Razak calling on Azmil to postpone hearing Sivanesan’s testimony, insisting it was “not relevant” and highly prejudiced against the MACC.

But Azmil — after being persuaded by Gobind, Malik, other lawyers acting for the Attorney General (AG) in helping the inquest as well as from the Bar Council and Ean Yong Hian Wah who was Teoh’s boss — decided to hear Sivanesan out first before deciding what to do with the testimony.

Gobind and Malik stressed that Sivanesan’s safety as a witness was now at stake because his identity has been exposed as he was seated in the public gallery during the lawyers’ quarrel.

If the magistrate chose to ignore the precaution, Malik highlighted, it would send the wrong message to future witnesses who may change their minds from giving testimony in open court.

The other lawyers pointed out to Azmil that the ball was in his court as he is the magistrate/coroner. He could choose not to consider the evidence in his final decision or even to expunge the witness’ evidence from the court records.

Teoh, the political secretary to Selangor state executive councillor Ean Yong Hian Wah was said to be the star witness in an ongoing probe over the abuse of state funds by DAP assemblymen.

The 30-year-old husband-to-be had checked into the MACC office on July 15 but never checked out. His body was found sprawled on a 5th-floor landing of the same building the next day.

It was “sudden death” the police said initially. Two pathologists who carried out the autopsy on Teoh said all the signs point to “suicide”.

But his family and his employer strongly believe foul play is involved. Their lawyers believe the same.

Malik Imtiaz Sarwar, representing the Selangor state government, told the coroner’s court today that the state plans to enter famed Thai pathologist, Dr Pornthip Rojanasunand, into the witness box next Monday.

A dissatisfied Abdul Razak who immediately filed for the high court to review and revise the magistrate’s decision to admit Sivanesan’s testimonies, succeeded to hold off the inquest from continuing tomorrow at 9am.

The high court in neighbouring Petaling Jaya will hear the application for a review tomorrow at 11am. (TMI)