[Plaza Masalam that housed the MACC office where Teoh was detained and last seen alive. Photo: Star Online]The need for original form of the document
A friend of mine since college days, who is now still working with Telekom Malaysia, often complains that they still have to retain the out-dated telegramme or telegraphic system despite having been superseded by other forms of better communication tools. He said it is simply because the court is still in need of this age-old mode of communication tool, which is free from tampering or if tampering is done to the document it would be noticeable or easily visible to the naked eyes. I am very much in agreement with him as far as speed and convenience are involved; other forms of communication tools would be the preferred mode.
As much as telegraphic system in sending urgent messages is still being used for purpose of admissibility in court the same still applies for photographs taken with camera that uses film. In order to be admissible as evidence photographs produced and tendered in court of law must be accompanied by their negatives. That speaks why photographs taken with digital cameras are to date not admissible in court of law. The reason being photographs taken with digital camera can be easily tampered with and almost undetectable without all the necessary efforts.
A photograph would speak a thousand words
But the matter that I am trying share interest with readers today is not about telegraphic system. I want to talk about photograph; I mean photographs that are not tampered with. That is why earlier on I deliberately mentioned on the need to retain certain system just to ensure documents including photographs are not being tampered with or in other words still in their pristine forms. Take any photograph and pass it to any people who have not been acquainted with it, you will be surprised that they can tell you so many things about it. That is why it is often said that a photograph would speak a thousand words.
Does Teoh Beng Hock's photograph speak a thousand word too?
First of all this writing is not meant to prove or disprove any previous comments or opinions made by anyone. The analysis is purely an academic exercise and just food for thought. Teoh Beng Hock [Teoh] was confirmed still with MACC on the 14th floor prior to the finding of his dead body on the fifth floor. From the fifth floor there would be EIGHT floors below the 14th floor and would take one to climb NINE floors to reach the 14th floor. How high is that is left to one's imagination. But let us make a rough calculation: by taking the height of each floor to be the same at 12 feet per floor, the total height of NINE floors would be 12x9=108 feet. That is nothing less than 32 metres high.
[Photo: Copied from Malaysia Today]Some simple observations
Look at the picture of the late Teoh's body again very carefully as it was found on the fifth floor. [This is assuming the picture has not been tampered with. This is the precise reason I mentioned earlier about the non-tampering of photograph].
The picture shows a clean fall. Not even a drop of blood is seen at the scene. But instead his shirt and pant were partly torn. When the late Teoh's dead body was found on the fifth floor, a senoir MACC officer immediately said the late Teoh committed suicide by jumping from the 14th floor. One of the MACC personnel immediately said the late Teoh had been released earlier.
Simple anaysis
We must maintain that a picture speaks a thousand words. Now is it consistent with someone who fell or jumped from 14th floor and landed on the fifth floor and died as a result of the fall to be totally without blood running from his body or any part of his body? To put it bluntly, no bleeding at all. This is interesting. Again a picture would speak a thousand words about what was behind such absence of bleeding. Never before in any fall of that height there was not a drop of blood spilled. Malaysian doctors or pathologists, please tell us how is this possible.
How did MACC immediately know the late Teoh committed suicide or quick to tell he committed suicide? They were very specific, didn't they?. They said he jumped. Were they saying that they saw the late Teoh jumped? If they did, why did they not alert the police, ambulance, or civil defence or any rescue team immediately? Again to put it bluntly, they never informed the rescue team at all. The body was found very many hours later. But if they did not see he jumped then why were they so quick in telling the whole world that the late Teoh jumped from the 14th flloor?
I shall not analyse the statement of MACC officers stating the late Teoh was already released but also still at the MACC building for many hours thereafter.
The conlusion to be drawn from the mysterious and inconsistent facts disclosed and statement made after the discovery of the late Teoh's dead body on the 5th floor is best left to the coroner. I understand the Royal Commission of Inquiry doesn't have such term of reference. The term of reference of the RCI is only confined to whether methods of interrogtion used by MACC in Teoh's case were proper or otherwise. I am just wondering for such a term of reference, why a RCI is used.
Just an analogy to show striking similarity
But before I rest my case I like to share a simple but true case, which perhaps may have some relevance or shed some light to the issue of photograph taken of the late Teoh's body on the fifth floor of Wisma Masalam. Some years ago a prosecution witness was cross examined in a joint trial of four defendants being indicted on one count of theft of a gunny sack of dried pepper berries. To be exact the witness was a police photographer with the rank of a corporal.
The prosecution's evidence was that the 1st accused, assisted by three others (2nd, 3rd and 4th accused persons) stole a gunny sack of dried pepper berries from the warehouse of their employer and hid the said gunny sack inside the boot of a car of one of their colleagues with the view to bringing the loot home after work. Their colleague, whose car was allegedly used as a conveyance although a suspect, was not charged in court but was called as prosecution's crown witness.
In his testimony the witness [I shall call him "PW7"] said he went to the scene of crime and took EIGHT snaps of photographs at the scene including THREE close up shots of the gunny sack in question, which became the subject matter of the charge. The so-called gunny sack containing what was alleged to be pepper berries was tendered as prosecution's exhibit [I shall refer to the exhibit as "P4"]. Allow me to give a brief description of the exhibit that we have marked as P4. This gunny sack that I have referred to as P4 herein was an ordinary but quite a worn out gunny sack with some holes on it. Hence in the course of trial some dried pepper berries were seen exiting from those holes. P4, which was almost full to the top was sealed by tying up its mouth or top part with a blue nylon rope.
Let us now come back to the testimony of PW7. Although the prosecution called the photographer as a witness with the view to producing and tendering photographs in question, not a single photograph was produced or tendered as exhibit. But what the prosecution tendered as exhibits were the EIGHT blank negatives allegedly coming from the film used for taking the EIGHT photographs aforementioned. Let us marked the eight blank negatives as P5 (a)-(h). The tendering of P5 (a)-(h) was an attempt by the prosecution to prove to the court that none of the eight shots was good, which the photographer termed or claimed as "hangus" [literally mean burnt].
What was interesting was the answer PW7 gave in the cross examination. He was asked if all the EIGHT shots were taken one after another progressively, that is to say if the first shot started with number 1, then it should end at number 8, to which he answered in the affirmative. [The eight shots taken in progressive sequence would be exhibiting numbers 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 and 8. If he had started with, number 20 for example, then the negatives should exhibit nos 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, and 27]. Before began cross examining PW7 the counsel had actually examined P5 (a)-(h) and found none of them was in progressive sequence. At this juncture the counsel had ample clue the witness had lied in saying the shots were bad or burnt up.
The witness agreed that had the shots been taken in progressive sequence, the negatives would have shown that but yet could not explain why the negatives that were tendered as exhibits did not. Yet he stood by his testimony that the shots were taken in that manner and the negatives were from that same film.
The witness testified that he had many years of experience as a police photographer and told the court that in the last three for four years none of the shots he took were "hangus". And in fact with the camera [Minolta single lens reflect] he used on that day in question, none of the shots was ever "hangus" prior to that mysterious day.
When it was put to him that in fact none of the shots was "hangus" but were all in good conditions and exhibiting exactly what he had photgraphed, he could not answer but asked the court if he could refuse to answer to which the court disallowed. Nevertheless after a long silence he said, he had no answer. It was further put to him that the reason why the photographs taken were deliberately not tendered because if tendered it would speak a thousand words to tell the truth that exhibit P4 was not the very same exhibit that the photographs would show if produced. PW7 also failed to answer but instead evaded the question.
As I have said earlier a photograph that is never tampered with would speak a thousand words. It is the same in the case of the late Teoh Beng Hock's photograph. The counsel had done a thorough investigation and knew exhibit P4 was never the exhibit taken from the boot of the car aforementioned, which was actually tied with a pink rope. Had the coloured photographs been produced and tendered as evidence they would have disclosed that P4 was not the subject matter of the indictment. To avoid any adverse inference the prosecution therefore tendered the blanks negatives as exhibits hoping that it would explain why no photographs was available. But in its attempt to hide the falsehood the prosecution had made a fatal blunder by tendering negatives that were not in running numbers. In the late Teoh Beng Hock's case, the same fatal blunder was made by forgetting to splash some blood to show consistency with a fall from a height of nothing less than 100 feet above.
Student Tan Kian Chong was found dead at the bottom of Apartmen Vista Angkasa in Kampung Kerinchi yesterday, suspected of falling down 16 floors [Photo taken from Malaysia Today]. Please look at the blood that spread all over the place.But one must also understand it would be extremely difficult to get blood out of the late Teoh's body without stabbing him with sharp object first, which would definitely leave laceration or cut that would be inconsistenct with a fall. But then it is more inconsistent where there was a total absencce of any bleed from such a fall. Whichever way the photograph speaks a thousand words the late Teoh's body that landed on the fifth floor of Wisma Masalam was not as a result of a fall. But then how did he die or how the dead body come by there? It is my considered opinion that only full and unbias investigation can provide the answer to the mystery.
May his soul rest in peace.
