Are our pathologists incompetent or are they implicit in a cover-up?

Written by Mariam Mokhtar, Malaysia Chronicle

Are our professionals simply incompetent or are they part of a cover-up operation?

During the trial into the death of 15 year-old Aminulrasyid Amzah, shot dead by policemen, the crime scene investigation officer Inspector Mazli Jusuh said that Aminulrasyid’s body had been moved before he arrived. Men from the Mobile Police Vehicle patrol unit moved the body, before the paramedics could examine the body.

Teoh Beng Hock died in suspicious circumstances at the hands of the Malaysia Anti-Corruption Commission. Selangor police chief Deputy Commissioner Khalid Abu Bakar said that initial findings in the pathologist’s report on political secretary Teoh showed that he died of multiple injuries due to a fall from a height.

The government pathologist who conducted the second post-mortem on Teoh disputed renowned Thai forensic pathologist Dr Pornthip Rojanasunand’s opinion that the political aide had probably been brutalised before his death.

Sungai Buloh Hospital Pathology Unit head Dr Shahidan Md Noor said Teoh’s injuries were consistent with a fall from height and dismissed manual strangulation.

Dr Pornthip had testified that Teoh’s death was 80 % homicide and several injuries found on him, seemed to be inconsistent with a fall from height and appeared to be pre-fall injuries. There were marks on Teoh’s neck which looked like he had been manually strangled and the injury to his anal region was a penetrative injury. Abrasions on Teoh's right upper thigh looked like he had been beaten with a piece of wood.

British forensic pathologist Dr Peter Vanezis, appointed by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission to assist in the inquest, also said that Teoh was not murdered or thrown out of a high building because the injuries he sustained were consistent with a fall from a height, such as from the 14th floor to the fifth floor landing.

A. Kugan died when in police custody. His post mortem was done by Ministry of Health Pathologist, Dr Abdul Karim Tajuddin. He found that Kugan had died of “myocarditis”, an inflammation of the heart muscle, and not from police brutality.

The Ministry’s post-mortem report was significantly different from the one obtained when Kugan’s family did a second autopsy at the Universiti Malaya Medical Centre.

The UMMC report had made no mention of myocarditis but stated that Kugan had died of kidney failure, caused by “rhabdomyolysis” or muscle breakdown, consistent with the blunt injuries seen on Kugan’s body.

The Ministry of Health Director-General, Dr Ismail Merican defended the pathologist Dr. Abdul Karim because he “had 26 years of medical practice, compared to the UMMC Pathologist’s 11 years’ experience”.

In 1998, a 40 year-old Jahai Orang Asli from Kelantan, called Tualang Puteh, was reported missing after he did not return from collecting petai beans in the jungle. His decomposed body was found eight days later. The search party which included the Jeli Police chief, Jahai villagers and Wildlife Department rangers, identified bite marks on the body and pug marks of a tiger near the body.

The pathologist who conducted the post-mortem said that Tualang had not been killed by a tiger. He said that Tualang died an unnatural death and had suffered a brain injury caused by a blunt injury hitting his head. He found no bite marks.

According to Dr Colin Nicholas of the ‘Center for Orang Asli Concerns’ an NGO which looks after Orang Asli interests, the search party believed that Tualang had fallen from the tree while trying to escape a tiger, before being mauled to death. There were scratch marks, similar to those of a tiger, on the tree trunk.

Tualang’s death was classified as a crime because of the conclusion of the pathologists’ report. If Tualang had been the victim of a tiger attack, his widow would have been able to claim welfare aid.

Several people in the area were attacked by tigers in the following years.

The pathologist, from the Kuala Terengganu Hospital who conducted the autopsy on Tualang in 1998 was one Dr Abdul Karim Tajuddin; the same one who performed the autopsy on Kugan.