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| Southeast Asia |
| Malaysia: Coroner's withdrawal leaves Selengor state legal team stranded |
| 2010-04-11 |
| KUALA LUMPUR: The Selangor government has been left in the dark with the sudden withdrawal by renowned Thai pathologist Dr Pornthip Rojanasunand from the Teoh Beng Hock inquest. State officers were huddled in meetings with lawyers on their next course of action, especially with the inquest set to reconvene on April 20. Pornthip was expected to testify on that day, with many eager to know the details of her report on Teoh's second post-mortem. Thirty-year-old Teoh was the political secretary to Selangor executive councillor Ean Yong Hian Wah and had been summoned to be questioned over allegations of irregularities in the state funds on July 15, 2009. He was however found dead the following day on top of the fifth floor adjacent to the building. Newsportal Malaysiakini reported today that Pornthip, the director-general of the Bangkok-based Central institute of Forensice Science (CIFS), has withdrawn from the inquest citing "political" pressure from the Malaysian government that could affect her work in Southern Thailand. In her earlier appearance in the Teoh inquest, Pornthip had said that the DAP political aide's death was "80 percent homicide". The Malaysian pathologists however had insisted that Teoh could have plunged to his death or suicide. This is not the first time Pornthip has claimed that she has been harassed because of her participation in the inquest. Previously she had said that she had been followed by unknown persons during her trips to Malaysia to testify. Her testimony at the inquest had also been rubbished by the government, especially by Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Mohd Nazri Aziz who today accused the Thai expert of lying. The federal government has not officially responded to Pornthip's claims that she had been pressured to pull out from testifying in the inquest. |
| Posted by:Pappy |