Friday 29 Mar 2024
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KUALA LUMPUR: More than four years after a doctor died under mysterious circumstances in Langkawi, his remains will be exhumed today for a second post-mortem to determine the cause of death.

His family’s lawyer M Visvanathan said the body of Dr Sebastian Joseph would be exhumed at the Christian cemetery in Shah Alam in the presence of Australian pathologist Dr Richard Byron Collins, a local pathologist, police, local government officials as well as church representatives.

“Depending on the condition of the body, Dr Collins must conduct the autopsy at the Universiti Malaya Medical Centre on Monday [today] as the Malaysian Medical Council has only given him a practising certificate for a day only,” Visvanathan told The Malaysian Insider.

He said an application to conduct a second post-mortem after exhuming a body is rare in Malaysia.

“The family is hoping the exhumed remains will be sufficient to determine the cause of death and to hold an inquest,” he added.

The Alor Setar High Court last month granted an application by Dr Sebastian’s mother, Santaamal Philip, for an inquest to determine how her son, a medical officer at the Kuah government clinic in Langkawi, died.

DPP Mohamad Rizal Fadzil and Visvanathan came to a compromise that the post-mortem will be jointly handled by the pathologist of the family’s choice, Dr Byron Collins and local pathologists.

The family would undertake all costs related to the exhumation and post-mortem.

Dr Sebastian, 30, was found dead in his government quarters in Padang Matsirat on Nov 17, 2010.

He was said to be in a kneeling position with his hands clenched.

In her application to the court in November last year, Santaamal said the post-mortem on Dr Sebastian was conducted at Langkawi Hospital by Dr Muhamad Arif Mohamad Rasat but the report stated the cause of death as “unascertained”.

She said the doctor who conducted the post-mortem was not a pathologist but a general practitioner.

According to Santaamal, a month before her son’s death, she had visited him to help him furnish his five-bedroom quarters, and that he had shared some “troubling” information of what was going on at his workplace.

Declining to elaborate, Santaamal only said it had to do with the number of the patients at the health clinic being prescribed Panadol for all sorts of ailments.

Dr Sebastian had also told his mother that various types of medication prescribed by him were not available in the clinic pharmacy, and that he wanted to report the matter to his superior. — The Malaysian Insider


This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on February 23, 2015.

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