Ahmad Sarbani Mohamed suffered injuries that were consistent with a fall from height, city police said today, eerily reminiscent of Teoh Beng Hock’s death nearly two years ago.
But Kuala Lumpur police chief Datuk Zulkifli Abdullah refused to say if the senior customs officer who was found dead at the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) office in Cheras on Wednesday, suffered any other injuries.
“His injuries were consistent with a fall from height. But we will only know the cause of death after the lab tests,” he told reporters this morning.
When asked if there were no other injuries, he said, “I didn’t say that and I didn’t say the injuries were the cause of death.”
Zulkifli had said on Wednesday that there were injuries to Ahmad Sarbani’s head.
The 56-year-old Selangor Customs assistant director was found dead on the first floor of the MACC office in Jalan Cochrane on Wednesday morning after falling from the third floor.
The incident has damaged MACC’s credibility as it continues to maintain its innocence in the death of former DAP aide Teoh.
A Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) is still ongoing into Teoh’s death, who plunged from the 14th floor of the then Selangor MACC office on July 16, 2009.
Zulkifli added today that six MACC officers have been called in to record their statements since the incident but refused to confirm if this included the two who were suspended by the anti-graft body yesterday for failing to accompany Ahmad Sarbani while he was in the MACC premises.
Kuala Lumpur police chief, Datuk Zulkifli Abdullah, said several doctors and experts were present during the only post-mortem conducted. — Pic by Shannon Teoh
Two MACC officers were suspended yesterday for failing to accompany witnesses or customers at all times while they are in MACC premises.
MACC investigations director Datuk Mustafar Ali said on Wednesday that Ahmad Sarbani had returned to the MACC building at 8.26am that morning without an appointment and requested to meet with the investigating officer.
Ahmad Sarbani had already given his statement to the MACC related to a sting on a Customs syndicate said to be responsible for RM3 billion in unpaid taxes and was released from custody at on Saturday.
Mustafar said an officer then accompanied the senior Customs officer to a room in the office before leaving to collect the case file but found him missing when he returned.
Ahmad Sarbani’s body was later found sprawled on the badminton court on the first floor.
Zulkifli also rectified reports that two post-mortems were conducted on Ahmad Sarbani’s body, stating that only one had been conducted in the presence of several doctors and experts.
HUKM head of forensic unit, Associate Professor Dr Shahrom Abdul Wahid, was reported to have been called in to conduct a review of the autopsy but only flew in to Sepang at 10am yesterday.
Ahmad Sarbani’s body was held in Hospital Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (HUKM) for over 24 hours before being released to his family at around 5pm yesterday.
Zulkifli also explained that the incident has been classified as sudden death to allow the police “to investigate all aspects in detail.”
“If our investigations move in a certain direction, we can reclassify later,” he said.
He also did not say when the lab report would be finalised but confirmed that closed-circuit television recordings from the MACC office had been seized.
Ahmad Sarbani had been remanded on March 29 following an MACC-led swoop on Customs staff, resulting in the arrest of 62 officers.
The MACC raided over 100 premises including 25 Customs offices in a nationwide dragnet for alleged tax evasion, money laundering and illegal funds outflows worth billions of ringgit.
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Just close the MACC and put all of them under remand. They are not efficient and transparent enough. They have a long way to go and maybe need some classes from Singapore or other developed nations. I wish we know the academic qualifications of these MACC people and if half boils, why are they employed as staff???
One after another fell down dead from MACC buildings and so many cases of death in PRDM detention, Malaysians can justify to draw conclusion that these 2 government enforcement units are evil organizations.
zulkifli is not lying when stating injuries were consistent with fall, he is only stating the obvious signs but this is only half truth, the whole truth might tell a different story, hope the post morten was done in a professional manner i.e. detail observations and examinations - physical signs of body, any needle prick bruises and unrelated skin bruises, blood and stomach contents for toxicology, tissue samples from various organs for analysis, full x-ray for the whole skeleton system, check for any unrelated DNA on his body, these are some of the basic examinations required to establish the whole truth of how he really died. the rakyat expects nothing less!
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