The parents of dead police detainee A Kugan want the immediate return of forensics specimens and other items seized by the police from the office of pathologist Dr Prashant N Sambekar.
Human rights lawyer N Surendran, said today that the specimens, photographs, documents and other materials relating to the post-mortem done by Prashant were seized by police, who came with a search warrant.The items were taken from Prashant's office at the Universiti Malaya Medical Centre (UMMC) on Monday morning.
The confiscation of the items means that Prashant will be unable to conduct his toxicology test on the level of drugs and toxins in Kugan’s body and complete the post-mortem report.
Surendran said he had received a letter from UMMC legal officer Nadzleen Othman informing him of the raid the same morning, but that no reason was cited.
At a press conference held at the Bar Council Legal Aid Centre at the Jalan Duta court complex this afternoon, Kugan’s visibly emotional father G Ananthan (right) pleaded for the return of the samples.
“If a further post-mortem needs to be conducted, I will personally dig up my son’s corpse. I will lift up my son’s corpse,” he said.
“His killers are still running free. There is no need to find his killers. They are all in the police station. There is enough evidence, all we want now is justice.”
Kugan’s mother N Indra, was seen wiping away her tears every now and then throughout the press conference.
DAP’s Puchong parliamentarian Gobind Singh Deo, who is in the team of lawyers representing the family, said a letter has been sent to the Criminal Investigation Department to demand the immediate return of the seized items.
“If they fail to do so, we will take them to court. The items were taken away without Kugan’s parents’ consent. This is highly unethical. Is the attorney-general prepared to take responsibility if the police are found to have tampered with the samples?
“The parents have paid thousands of ringgit for his second port-mortem, and they are still running around, lodging reports everywhere. When is this going to end?”
Seizure prevents toxicology test
Kugan died on Jan 20 at the USJ Taipan police station, where he had been detained to assist in a car-theft case.
Relatives identifying his body at the Serdang Hospital mortuary claimed they found several bruises and lesions on his torso and legs.
The police requested a post-mortem, conducted by Dr Abdul Karim Tajuddin of Serdang Hospital and which concluded that Kugan died from fluid accumulation in his lungs.
Dissatisfied with the results, Kugan’s family sent his body for a private post-mortem at UMMC, where Prashant concluded that the cause of death was acute renal failure from rhabdomyolysis.
After much public outcry of what was perceived to be an extreme incident of police torture, attorney-general Abdul Gani Patail classified the case as murder. 
Health Ministry director-general Dr Ismail Merican, commented on Monday that the injuries sustained by Kugan (left) were insufficient to cause his death, whether individually or collectively, and alleged that there were discrepancies in Prashant’s autopsy report.
He also claimed that second autopsy was incomplete because Prashant has failed to do a toxicology report, but Surendran refuted this.
“Dr Prashant had made arrangements for the samples for the toxicology test to be examined by experts from an Australian institution,” said the lawyer.
“But the test was delayed because of bushfires (in Victoria). The logistics problems were settled by March 31, and Dr Prashant was ready to dispatch the samples within (the next) few days.
“Then came the police raid on April 6. How can Dr Ismail claim that Dr Prashant was being uncooperative when his chance to conduct the test was taken away?”
Cover-up alleged
An independent committee set up by the ministry, comprising nine local and foreign doctors, has since concluded that Kugan died of acute pulmonary oedema cue to acute myocarditis, compounded by blunt force trauma.
Describing the committee’s conclusions as “sickening whitewash”, Surendran said: “They have never seen Kugan’s body, and none of us (lawyers) were invited to participate in the inquiry.
“They picked out their conclusions based on Dr Prashant’s findings. It seems as if they are deliberately reinterpreting (his report) to achieve a certain result.”
He refuted the committee’s conclusion that there was no evidence of injury to the internal organs, showing photos of the relevant injuries based on the second post-mortem.
Ismail had further said the first autopsy showed only 22 external injuries, while the second showed 45 - of these, six were incision wounds made by Karim.
Although both pathologists had documented the same injuries, the size of each as reported by Prashant was larger due to hypostasis changes after the first autopsy, Ismail added.
However, Surendran challenged this: “Dr Prashant has done a very extensive report ... he has isolated the changes to the body since the first post-mortem.”
Given the situation, he added, the lawyers have no choice but to conclude that there is an attempt by the police and ministry to cover up the cause of death.
Meanwhile, MIC Youth wing advisor S Vell Paari said he wanted to enlist the help of an Australian expert to determine the real cause of Kugan's death.
He said that the conflicting findings of the two post-mortem reports as well as the new claims made by the independent committee set up by the Health Ministry had only confused the matter further."We want to know how he died. Was he beaten to death or did he suffer from some ailment?" he asked today.
He said the MIC Youth will be working with an Australian expert to sort out the confusion.
"I have identified the expert and I have spoken to him. He has agreed to help. I have also spoken to a well-known lawyer in Kuala Lumpur who has agreed to help us in this matter," he told Malaysiakini.
What he needs now is to have copies of the two post-mortems done on Kugan.
He said that MIC Youth's newly-formed committee to look into custodial deaths would be trying to get the post-mortem reports from Kugan's family.
"The committee is meeting this Sunday and we have asked Kugan's family to attend the meeting so that we can tell them what we can do for them," said Vell Paari.
He said that the committee and the Kuala Lumpur-based lawyer will be making recommendations to the MIC Youth on what actions can be taken by the family after an opinion is given by the Australian expert.
He also did not rule out taking private legal action against the police force.
"We want to bring an end to this Kugan chapter. We don't want his family to suffer further. They should have their peace of mind," he said.
He also said that the ministry's committee had given a new cause of death which was not mentioned in both the post-mortem reports.
"So how did Kugan die? That is what we want to know. We hope our own consultant can help us answer this," he added.
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