“The public needs to stop speculating on this case and allow the police space and time to investigate it thoroughly,” MACC chief Azam Baki said on Wednesday.
“You cannot blame us for her disappearance as the incident was beyond our control and occured on a public road, not within the MACC compound,” he told the New Straits Times.
In her latest statement on Wednesday, Sangeet also claimed that MACC had subjected Ling to a systematic campaign of pressure over several months, reported the New Straits Times.
She alleged that the MACC had remanded Ling “without proper legal basis” and imposed a travel ban on her without explanation, on top of exerting pressure on her to resolve a private dispute with her estranged husband instead of for legitimate investigative purposes.
The MACC, in a statement also on Wednesday, rejected allegations of harassment or misconduct against its officers, describing the claims as “baseless”.
The anti-graft body also said Ling’s judicial review application does not invalidate the investigation into her.
According to MACC, the probe was initiated into Ling and her husband in May last year for alleged corruption and money laundering offences, with the husband called in to give his statement.
Hah is a founder of JoinLand Group, which has interests in the local and international business scene.
The Star reported that Hah’s company, linked to a land deal on an island in Sabah’s northern Kudat district, had recently backed out of a controversial agro-development project.
To complete its probe, the anti-graft agency had tracked down and summoned Ling to provide her statement at the MACC headquarters but she did not cooperate.
An arrest warrant was obtained on Dec 2 last year from the Putrajaya magistrates’ court for the offence of failing to comply with the order to attend an interview for the purpose of completing the probe, FMT reported.
“Subsequently, on Jan 8, a joint operation with Singapore’s Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) was launched (and) Ling was lawfully apprehended and brought back to Malaysia,” MACC said in its statement on Wednesday.
Ling was then remanded from Jan 9 to 11 before being released on bail.
Ling’s father told The Star that his daughter had been living alone in Kuala Lumpur since January after she was banned from travelling to assist in the MACC investigations.
CNA has contacted Singapore’s CPIB for comments. Borneo Post reported that Ling had been residing in Singapore from 2008 until the January move. While in Singapore, she ran a property management company.
According to MACC, it had also obtained an order from the deputy public prosecutor for Ling to surrender her travel documents.
“At this stage, our shared priority should be to provide full cooperation to the authorities so that efforts to locate and safely return Ling can proceed smoothly, safely and as swiftly as possible,” the anti-graft agency was quoted as saying by FMT.
According to Ling’s lawyer Sivananthan, Ling and her husband were undergoing a contentious divorce in both Singapore and Malaysia involving a substantial estate, Malay Mail reported.
As of Thursday, local media reported that no ransom demands have been made.
This is not the first time the MACC is under scrutiny while conducting its probe.
In another high-profile case, former journalist Teoh Beng Hock died after being held for questioning overnight at the then Selangor MACC office in Shah Alam on Jul 16, 2009.
Malaysia’s Royal Commission of Inquiry concluded in 2011 that his death was a suicide but three years later, in September 2014, the Court of Appeal ruled that Teoh’s death from a fall was caused by “an unlawful act by unknown individuals”.
Teoh’s family had filed a civil lawsuit in 2012, claiming compensation over sadness, loss of dependency and negligence by MACC, according to Malay Mail.
In 2015, the defendants of the case – 10 MACC officers, the MACC and the Malaysian government – settled the civil lawsuit by agreeing to pay Teoh’s family RM600,000 in damages and RM60,000 in cost and admitted to negligence on their part which resulted in Teoh’s death.
Teoh’s family members met Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim on Aug 1 last year, with the prime minister announcing that the government has agreed to reopen its investigation into Teoh’s death.
https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/malaysia-pamela-ling-disappearance-kidnapping-macc-corruption-money-laundering-cpib-5116966
