CSI Thailand vs Malaysia
posted in - Nation, - Palmdoc |Now that she has stated her startling contrasting opinion in the ongoing inquest on TBH’s mysterious death at the MACC, will Dr. Pornthip Rojanasunand deliver another black eye to the Malaysian medical profession? This time, at the other corner are the two local pathologists. The scenario reminds one of the infamous Kugan custodial death incident where there were significant different conclusions by 2 pathologists.
Testifying in the inquest into Teoh’s death Wednesday, she said there was only a 20% chance that Teoh had committed suicide.
She added that marks on Teoh’s neck region looked like he had been strangled manually.
“The contusion of the skin on the right side of the neck looks round, indicating it might have been caused by fingers,” she added.
and disturbingly, she adds :
Dr Pornthip: The first is the anal injury; from the picture there’s a penetrative injury at the anal region. I have never seen this type of injury in cases of fall from height.
She added that if the injury had indeed been caused by a bone protrusion, it would have come from the inside of Teoh’s anus as opposed to being a penetrative injury.
Dr Pornthip also said the abrasions found on Teoh’s upper right thigh also appeared like he had been beaten with a piece of wood.
There is more than one line and the direction of the force on the thigh is different from the direction of the penetrative injury to the anal region, she said.
According to Dr Pornthip, there was a need to open the skin in the area where the haemorrhage was found to determine if torture had been involved. (Both the pathologists who had conducted the post-mortem on Teoh had failed to do so.)
She added this was necessary to determine whether the haemorrhage was compatible with a fall from a height and single impact from the ground.
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 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 such as that suffered by Teoh.
Dr Pornthip said Teoh, 30, was probably alive when he hit the ground but may have been unconscious before the fall.
She added this was in view of the fact that there was no reaction or defensive wounds on his ankles and wrists which would have occurred if he had been conscious.
So was it suicide or homicide?
It makes a world of a difference though if it was the latter it remains to be determined who the real killers were - and that will require good police work and not just post-mortem conclusions.
I suspect eventually there will be an exhumation order and a second post-mortem (m’kini: Family mulls exhumation for fresh autopsy). I hope TBH’s body does not mysteriously disappear!
Spotted in the blogosphere:
DrRafick: Death at MACC: My CSI XV
Lucia Lai: Teoh Beng Hock Did Not Commit Suicide
AnilNetto: “Dr Death” drops bombshell at Teoh inquest
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October 22nd, 2009 at 2:25 am
Does it mean Dr. Prashant’s findings in Kugan cases should not be trusted?
October 22nd, 2009 at 5:44 am
OK I’ll feed the troll this time.
1. The important difference here is that Dr. PR has not yet conducted an actual post-mortem on TBH and her opinion may change once she does.
2. We have only read media reports on the post-mortem findings but AFAIK there is no online “leak” of the entire post-mortem report unlike the Kugan case (anyone know if there is one?) so it is difficult to do anything other than speculate.
3. I don’t know of any doctor who gets the diagnosis right 100% of the time, do you? If he gets it wrong 1/100 times does it mean his 99/100 diagnoses cannot be trusted?
4. Some cases can be harder than others - more gray than black and white - so there will be more differences in opinion as some things may be more debatable or doubtful.
5. The stakes in the TBH case are much higher as it seems to involve politicians directly (but perhaps not quite reaching Mongolian level). One can only speculate how one will perform under pressure from unseen hands squeezing the sphericals.
Having said that the public demands the truth. We pray and hope the truth will prevail.
October 22nd, 2009 at 9:38 am
Actually, even the local pathologist did not rule out the possibility that it was NOT suicide.
h**p://bit.ly/1DWG7v
Quote:
“Teoh Beng Hock did not seem like a person who would commit suicide, said pathologist Dr Khairul Azman Ibrahim.
He also told the court he had never ruled out homicide as a factor though there was insufficient evidence.
“Teoh did not seem to have any psychological problems which may have prompted him to end his life,” said the pathologist.
I think the only conclusion that the local pathologists definitively came to, was that TBH “died of a fall from height.”
Whether he jumped out, or was thrown out or suddenly pushed out, or fell out as a consequence of an bungled attempt to intimidate him by dangling him over the edge,
could NOT be determined by the autopsy, imho.
October 25th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
palmdoc, the TBH post mortem report can be found here:
h**p://www.malaysiakini.com/doc/benghock_report.php
or:
h**p://www.malaysiakini.com/doc/images/benghock_report/p01.jpg to /p08.jpg
October 26th, 2009 at 11:33 pm
I think everybody can make a conclusion that TBH is ‘died of a fall height’. The statement that the local pathologist said ‘never ruled out homidice as a factor just to cover his mistake if anything happened’ are too general - everybody can do this. I would that the purpose is to rule out any future unnecessary medicolegal complication. For instance the doctor will document down patient has no this and that symptom in order to cover for their insufficiency.
I would think that to be a ‘responsible’ pathologist. He should stand firm with his findings with supportive evidence that is found from the cadaver. How come Dr Ponthip can make such a conclusion with the concrete reason behind of what she has concluded? This gave me the impression that local pathologist did things and statement very ‘cincai’ and ‘no confident’. These has cause the public a lot of misunderstanding of what they said - this shouldn’t be happened. The strong example was the Kugan Autopsy that has happened recently by 2 pathologists in Malaysia.
I think we as a doctor should learn the Dr Ponthip’s attitude and her enthusiasm towards her profession. I don’t think most of the doctor will have the attitude like her - won’t you agree? You earn respect from people and not buy from them.
November 4th, 2009 at 12:45 am
http://rockybru.com.my/2009/11/case-for-second-foreign-forensic-expert_03.html
This is sure to stir up the controversy.
November 5th, 2009 at 6:34 pm
This could be same trick used by KD CEO Mr T to MCA Mr O. By destroying a person personality therefore to make whatever statement she makes become unreliable. Sinchew not reporting it because the source maybe not reliable.