A few days before Teoh Beng Hock was taken away from his office at the state government building in Shah Alam by a team from Selangor Malaysian Anti Corruption Commission (MACC) officers, Khir Toyo, the opposition leader in the state assembly was reprimanded for his refusal to attend certain hearings concerning certain irregularities found during his tenure as menteri besar.

At the end, an angry Khir Toyo stormed out of the assembly in protest. Immediately after that incident, if my memory serves me right, certain federal ministers announced the initiation of thorough investigation into five to six state executive councilors suspected of abuse of power and corruption.         

It was under this circumstance that Teoh was snatched away from his office as a witness on July 15, 2009 because the target of the investigation was his superior Ean Yong Hian Wah. That was probably the last time the public saw him alive.

While in the custody of Selangor MACC, Teoh went through a much contested overnight interrogation and was found dead the next day, sprawling on the cement floor, 14 floors below Selangor MACC office.

The outrage from the public is only expected when the coroner of the inquest into Teoh’s death returned an open verdict that the cause was neither suicide nor homicide. Many commentators rightly screamed for a more thorough investigation for the actual cause pointing to severe bruises found on Teoh’s neck that only came to light during the second autopsy under the watchful eyes of Dr Pornthip of Thailand.

Why was this injury not reported by the government pathologist who did the first autopsy? This was only but one of the many “misses” by the government pathologist.

To allay the public outcry over the said verdict, prime minister Najib swiftly announced the setting up of a Royal Commission of Inquiry (RCI) on Jan 7, 2011 but with a restricted role confining it to investigate on MACC’s procedure in interrogation so that as he claimed, to find out whether the enforcement agency “had violated any human rights provision”.

Given the above scenario, many readers were angry at this proposal for the obvious inadequacy of such a RCI to address the more pressing issue of what caused the death.

My contention is, why do we have to harp on discovering the cause of Teoh’s death? Yes indeed the bruises sustained on his neck gives us the starting point of further enquiry, but it should not be the end goal of a RCI if it is to be one.

Remember the circumstance leading to the announcement from the federal ministers over the suspected irregularities in the Selangor state government administration? The simple question is who will stand to benefit should evidence of corruption is unearthed? Would the incentive structure of the Umno-led BN coalition be sufficiently strong for any sign of malfunctioning of the administration under menteri besar Khalid Ibrahim?

The point to make is in a tragedy like this, one ought to see the incident beyond the actor-agent as Durkheim would have put it as “social fact”.

The necessity of Selangor MACC in conducting an interrogation over a paltry sum of RM2,400 was mind boggling to begin with. More important was the motives in bringing Teoh into the Selangor MACC office.

The more important questions are, what exactly was the briefing given to MACC officers before the raid on Ean Yong on July 15, 2009? And who gave the briefing to Selangor MACC officers?