Missing KL deputy public prosecutor found murdered, body dumped in oil drum

KUALA LUMPUR — Malaysian police yesterday confirmed that missing deputy public prosecutor Kevin Anthony Morais was murdered after human remains were found in a concrete-filled drum in Subang Jaya 12 days after his disappearance.

Police also confirmed that seven people, including a military doctor, have been arrested.

Federal Criminal Investigation Department (CID) director Mohmad Salleh said the main suspect had led police to the swampy area, where the drum, containing Morais’ body, was dumped. “We believe it has to do with a case in the Shah Alam court that Morais was involved in. The suspect was involved in a corruption case that Morais was prosecuting,” he said at the scene.

Morais, who was with the Attorney-General Chambers and believed to be involved in investigations surrounding troubled state investment firm 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), was reported missing on Sept 4 after he left home for work.

While initially handled as a missing person’s case, the authorities later reclassified the case to one of abduction based on footage from a closed-circuit television camera obtained in Kuala Lumpur.

The footage showed Morais’ car being rammed by another car along a road in the city before being taken away by several men.

Speculation was rife during the initial period of the case that Morais had worked in the special taskforce investigating 1MDB, and that this had led to his disappearance.

The state investment firm has been in the spotlight after racking up more than RM42 billion (S$13.9 billion) of debt. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) alleged in July that 1MDB-linked companies had transferred up to RM2.6 billion into the personal bank accounts of Prime Minister Najib Razak before the general elections in 2013. The government had set up a special taskforce — comprising the Attorney-General Chambers and several other agencies — to investigate the allegations.

Police yesterday dismissed any connection between the murder of Morais and the ongoing probe into 1MDB. “We can dismiss all speculation that this case had anything to do with 1MDB and Hussain Najadi,” Mr Mohamad of the CID said at a press conference yesterday.

Some had also linked Morais’ disappearance to the murder of Arab-Malaysian Development Bank (AmBank) founder Hussain Najadi, who was shot two years ago in broad daylight. According to the allegations made by WSJ in July, some of the money from 1MDB-linked companies was deposited into Mr Najib’s bank account in AmBank. One of Morais’ brothers was also a witness in that shooting.

Mr Mohmad said yesterday that police found Morais’ body after breaking open the barrel filled with cement with the help of the Fire and Rescue Department.

The body has been sent to a hospital for post-mortem.

Former Attorney-General Abdul Gani Patail visited the hospital after the body was discovered and was seen embracing members of Morais’ family.

He told reporters that Morais was a “good man”.

“We have lost a good officer,” he said. The former Attorney-General — who was replaced in July in the midst of the investigations into 1MDB — would not comment on the circumstances of Morais’ death.

Morais was prosecuting a corruption case in the Shah Alam Court involving the military doctor.

The military doctor, a colonel in his 50s attached to a pathology lab in a Kuala Lumpur hospital, was charged with unlawful trade in December 2013 and Morais was the deputy public prosecutor in the case.

The doctor was slapped with two bribery charges involving RM700,000 for allegedly recommending three companies to supply medicine and disposable medical tools to the hospital.

The seven people detained include a woman and a child, but Mr Mohmad of the CID said they were not directly involved in the case but were picked up along with seven others. AGENCIES