Thursday October 22, 2009
Pornthip: Several of Teoh’s injuries appeared inconsistent with fall
By WANI MUTHIAH
SHAH ALAM: Renowned Thai forensic pathologist Dr Pornthip Rojanasunand told the inquest into the death of political aide Teoh Beng Hock that it was an 80% probability his death was a homicide.
She said it was only a 20% probability that Teoh had committed suicide.
Dr Pornthip also testified that the marks on Teoh’s neck looked like he had been manually strangled.
Expert witness: Dr Pornthip arriving at the Shah Alam court yesterday. The Selangor government had invited Dr Pornthip, the director-general of Thailand’s Ministry of Justices Central Institute of Forensic Science, to give her expert opinion.
She is well-known for her prowess in cracking open complicated homicide cases.
She is the author of Investigation of Corpses, which sold 100,000 copies in Thailand, and also led a group of international forensic scientists in 2004 to identify the remains of the Asian tsunami victims.
Her life and work was narrated in the National Geographic documentary Crime Scene Bangkok in 2004.
Questioned by Malik Imtiaz Sarwar, counsel holding a watching brief for the Selangor government, Dr Pornthip said that several of Teoh’s injuries appeared to be inconsistent with a fall from height and appeared to be pre-fall injuries.
(Dr Pornthip had been provided postmortem reports prepared by Dr Khairul Aznam Ibrahim from the Klang Tengku Rahimah Ampuan and Universiti Malaya Medical Centre’s Dr Prashant Samberkar as well as pictures of Teoh’s injuries.)
Referring to an anal tear Teoh suffered as a “penetrative injury”, Dr Pornthip said she had never seen this type of injury in cases of a fall.
If the injury had indeed been caused by a bone protrusion, she said it would have come from the inside of Teoh’s anus.
She said the abrasions on Teoh’s right upper thigh looked like he had been beaten with a piece of wood.
She added that there was a need to cut open the skin to check for internal bleeding to determine whether Teoh had been tortured.
(Both the pathologists who had conducted the postmortem on Teoh had not done so.)
Dr Pornthip also said Teoh’s skull fracture was not typical of a transferred injury due to a fall but was more compatible with a blunt force being directly inflicted to the head.
She said the transferred injury to the skull due to the impact of the fall would typically cause a ring fracture at the base of the skull around the spinal column and not a cervical spine fracture as suffered by Teoh.
Dr Pornthip said Teoh, 30, was probably alive when he hit the ground but might have been unconscious before the fall.
She said this was because there was no reaction wounds on his ankles and wrists to show he had instinctively tried to stop himself from hitting the ground.
She said it was possible he was unconscious from manual strangulation or pain from the anal region.
She estimated his time of death to have occurred between 6am and 8am on July 16.
Teoh, the political secretary to Selangor executive councillor Ean Yong Hian Wah, had been summoned to the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) office at the 14th floor of Plaza Masalam to be questioned over the irregular disbursement of state funds on July 15.
He was found dead on the fifth floor service corridor of the building the following day.
Meanwhile, the Selangor government called on the authorities to study the expert opinion of Dr Pornthip on Teoh’s death.
“Her evidence has indeed proven that the state’s fear on the safety of government officials during interrogation by the MACC is not totally unfounded,” Mentri Besar Tan Sri Khalid Ibrahim said in a statement yesterday.
Given her experience, he said Dr Pornthip’s evidence could not be taken lightly.
He reiterated his government’s call for a Royal Commission of Inquiry into Teoh’s death instead of just looking into the interrogation methods used on him by the MACC.
Related Story:
Pornthip willing to conduct post mortem on Teoh
Earlier Stories:
Evaluation put off because hospital refused witness
MACC raises Teoh's living conditions at inquest
Teoh inquest: MACC subordinate told not to lodge police report
Actor finds reports of ‘affair’ amusing
Mystery male DNA identified
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