…cannot make the court do the right thing in a country where political will dictates, well, everything.
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.
(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. -The Star Read the rest here.
Now the zeal will be to dispute the credentials and evidence of Dr Porntip Rojanasunand. Not that they can find holes in the credentials of this famed Dr Death. Here’s an interesting chronicle of her exploits in the face of adversity.
Dr Rafick in his blog posed some interesting questions post-Porntip pronounciations. Read it here. Now let’s remember firstly why this inquest took place.
In my opinion, there are way too many questions waiting to be answered that the Najib administration will have no choice but to give up the culprits. Some folks gotta pay for what happened to Teoh Beng Hock. Or it will become another ghostly millstone a la Altantuya Shariibuu and another custodial death superstar A.Kugan, around Najib’s neck.
People would probably close one eye to corruption, especially when it is so endemic in our civil service, corporations and politics, saying same bullshit, different day.
But this suspicious death is very close to looking like torture and subsequent murder. This shocks even the most jaded of us. Not that the government is new to the practice of murdering its own citizens. I mean I’m sure Musa Hitam could regale us with some tales on that score.
MACC is already a suspect organisation. This could be the best excuse to purge it off its borderline criminal elements, but then it has been a useful tool of governmental persecution, hasn’t it? But it has become too good at its job eh?
So yeah, I hope Mr 1Malaysia will also see some sense in 1Justice and 1Justice seen to be done.
My inner self sniggers at my naive hope, but hey, let’s keep the pressure on. I don’t care if Teoh wasn’t an angel. He doesn’t deserve to be murdered.
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October 23, 2009 at 5:43 pm
Cucu
Whose the culprit you are presumptuously assuming Najib knows? Thats like putting words in someone’s mouth.
I am flabergasted that Dr Porno could pluck a numerical staiutstic of 80% out of thin air. Many like to believe what they want to believe. But we should be critical and sceptical as to be sure how she derived it.
The fact that her source of information is purely from secondary source of photos and reports from other doctors raised more doubts as to her credibility to make such claims.
Does it make you curious why she is paid by Selangopr state government at the rate of USD120,000 an hour, thats what some blogs are saying. Selangor Government have not revealed to the taxpayers that yet.
Is she really independent or she will please her paymaster?
Lets for argument sake, take her words in good faioth. So all words said in the Inquery are taken in good faith.
If there is such homicide, what is the motive for MACC to kill?
I see the motive to kill is more likely by the DAP goons. Tan Boon Hwa had an early morning quarel in the toilet with Teoh. There is Lim something who is at the premise together than morning.
One MACC officer testified that he used a longer secret passage to get to the office. Could the murderers that together strangled Teoh know and took the same passage.
Get your facts in order before coming to such assumptions la …, honey
October 26, 2009 at 5:23 pm
galadriel
When I say giving up the culprits I meant MACC and the guys who interrogated TBH with such results. I think we’ve seen too many instances of people in authority shielded from accountability, hence that para.
I’m not flabbergasted with the 80% stats, cos she indicated why. 1) Lack of defensive wounds, the anal tear that was not consistent with a fall, and the strangulation marks.
Now that TBH’s family has consented to a second autopsy, she could revise or reaffirm her earlier 80% homicide testimony, and state why. If it is inconsistent with the earlier forensics report, the inquest will also hear it.
When I wrote this report, I referred to a news report. Nowhere was it mentioned that she took USD 120,000 for her services. I went blog-surfing and found that the assertion was initially made by blogs newly sprung. Plus, some of the same blogs also paint Dr Porntip as a whore. How objective is that?
BTW, I can’t resist the dig here. How much do you think the Selangor govt has in its coffers after the pre-March shopping spree by BN assemblymen? isn’t a hundred grand plus rather outlandish a sum?
Yes. Tan Boon Hwa was said to have quarrelled with Teoh. Could be true. But the series of injuries points to TBH being in a helpless position. If it was a quarrel that went bad, don’t you think there would have been more scrapes indicative of a struggle?
As to secret passage, isn’t it equally speculative to say that these outside murderers knew secret passages into the MACC office. Can you imagine what that says about MACC itself?
October 26, 2009 at 9:22 pm
lone ranger
Maybe (just maybe), Anwar has a logical explanation on this anus thingy.
November 12, 2009 at 2:43 am
ruyom
UMNO is only good at spinning and deceiving the people, in particular the malays. The younger generation of malays now are smarter than their forefathers. The smart malays are shying away from UMNO because UMNO has deceived them for far the last 30 years. UMNO has brought harm onto themselves.
November 12, 2009 at 2:49 am
kok
22.The truth is that Umno has ruled supreme for the last 50 years. It always got its way because the dominant ethnic majority of the country always supported its policies.
The state of the nation is corrupt, discriminatory, inefficient, racist, unjust, and backward. If Malaysia stinks then it is because Umno stinks.
If the “morals of the country” stinks, then it is because the morals of Umno politicians stinks.
I won’t even discuss the morality of explosives and murder of foreign nationals as most people seem to be able to tell the difference between right and wrong in this instance.
Instead, I shall talk about Umno corruption and Umno racism as the former will occasion the disastrous downfall of this nation, and the latter will be the downfall of the malays.
Umno teaches that it is just to discriminate against all non-malays and non-Muslims: business, college universities, education opportunities, government contracts, jobs, schools, taxes, and even finding a cemetery to bury the dead.
Umno teaches that it is right to discriminate on the basis of a person culture, language, race or religious belief.
In front of malays, it speaks of the race and religious, cultural and language supremacy, glorification of ethnic and power subjugation, and in front of non-malays, it speaks of the tolerance and unity in diversity.
To the vernacular schools it gives a pittance for support, and to malay language schools, there is no need to be diplomatic and call them “national language” schools, it gives 100% support.
As for English medium schools, the type that made Malaysia education the best in South East Asia, and our school leavers the most sought after anywhere in the civilised world, they were made extinct, courtesy of Umno cultural fantasies and language supremacist.
So we are left with unemployable graduates with deplorable job skills and prospects.
Umno language supremacist policies caused the extinction of the best high quality education that Malaysia and the malays would ever know.
Umno perversion of the very idea of meritocracy in favour of racist discrimination has ensured the lack of meritocractic competition for all Malaysians.
Later or sooner, the malays will realise that denying meritocracy to non-malays guarantees that there can be no meritocracy for malays even within their own community.
Umno policies caused a brain drain to Australia, Canada, New Zealand, UK, and the US.
The fact that there is no entitlement complex nor inferiority complex or notable NEP dependence amongst the non-malays is no accident.
If the non-malays were the dominant ethnic majority, and they had an Umno-like racist party to lead them with promises of ethnic privileges, ethnic supremacy and racial discrimination, then I believe they would have lost their self-belief, self-confidence, and self-respect too.
Farish Noor once said “Umno ternak melayu untuk disembelih”.
I agree, and if the dominant ethnic majority fails to see past Umno false gods of ethnic aggrandizement and seductive promises of ethnic supremacy, then we are all finished.
November 12, 2009 at 2:52 am
aston
But in Malaysia, MACC, police, Umno and judiciary are one team – united against law, order, rule and justice – to intimidate the people, to jail the innocent, to oppress the opposition and to defend the criminal.
November 12, 2009 at 10:17 am
rajan
Heiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii Have you done the PI Bala too !
HeHe