Kugan’s family wants explanation on first autopsy

KUALA LUMPUR, April 17 — The family of A. Kugan, the car-theft suspect who died while in police custody, today met with the Ethics Committee of the Malaysian Medical Council (MMC) to hear their explanation on the first autopsy report on Kugan which was found to differ from the second report.

The meeting which lasted about three hours at the Federal Territory Health Department, here was led by Datuk Dr Megat Burhanuddin Megat Abdul Rahman representing the MMC, and was also attended by two lawyers representing Dr Abdul Karim Tajudin, who performed the first autopsy, and N. Surendran, the lawyer for Kugan’s family.

Surendran, when met by reporters after the meeting, said Kugan’s family had to get clarification from Dr Abdul Karim on his autopsy report on Kugan which was found to differ from the second report.

“Although the decision on the report of the Independent Committee was announced on April 6, we want to see whether the report on the first autopsy was truly transparent or otherwise. Today, the MMC had called both parties for a meeting to resolve the matter,” he said.

The second autopsy report released on March 2 by the University of Malaya Medical Centre (UMMC) showed that Kugan had 45 injury marks due to repeated beatings with a blunt object on several parts of the body.

In contrast, the first autopsy at the Serdang Hospital revealed that the cause of death was due to water in the lungs. However, following a request by the family of the deceased, who were not satisfied with the outcome of the autopsy because of the injury marks on the body, a second autopsy was carried out by UMMC forensic pathology expert, Dr Prashant Samberkar on January 25.

Kugan, 22, who was suspected to be a member of a car-theft gang, was remanded on January 15 and died while in police custody at the USJ 8 Police Station lock-up on January 20.

Bernama
17/04/09

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