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Sunday 25 January 2009

Kugan’s family wins battle for second post-mortem

By Neville Spykerman( The Malaysian insider)

PETALING JAYA, Jan 24 — The police have finally relented to appeals from the family of Kugan Ananthan to have a second post-mortem to determine his cause of death.

The family of the 22-year-old suspected car thief is disputing the initial official findings which indicate he died due to water in his lungs after five days in police custody.

Lawyer Gobind Singh Deo, who is assisting the family, said the second post-mortem will be done tomorrow at 9am at the University Malaya Medical Centre (UMMC).

"The procedure is expected to take between eight and nine hours because the family has requested for a detailed examination of the body."

However, he said getting police authorisation for the second post-mortem was an uphill battle despite assurance from Bukit Aman yesterday that the police would authorise it.

Gobind, who is also Puchong MP, said police at the Subang Jaya district headquarters today initially refused to give the green light, saying that they did not receive any instructions from Bukit Aman.

"I had to accompany the family to the police station at 3pm and had to liaise between the officer in Bukit Aman and the Subang Jaya police chief to resolve the issue."

Despite this, the police still insisted they get an official letter from UMMC and they were forced to go to the hospital at 5pm.

Gobind said the issue was finally resolved at about 8.30pm after a UMMC public relations officer spoke to the Subang Jaya police chief over the phone to get his green light.

"The whole situation was ridiculous and the police should not have put the grieving family through the ordeal."

Subang Jaya police chief ACP Zainal Rashid Abu Bakar declined to comment when called by The Malaysian Insider today.

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