Court threatens to issue arrest warrant on Kapar MP
(Bernama) – The Coroner's Court warned Kapar member of Parliament S. Manikavasagam on Monday that a warrant of arrest will be issued against him if he continues to avoid a subpoena to testify in the inquest of actress K. Sujatha.
Coroner Mohd Faizi Che Abu told Deputy Public Prosecutor Geethan Ram Vincent to instruct the investigation officer of the case to make another attempt to serve the subpoena on Manikavasagam by Monday to compel him to attend the court hearing Tuesday.
"Please direct the investigation officer to serve the subpoena by this evening and if he continues to avoid receiving it then the court will issue a warrant of arrest tomorrow," said Faizi.
Earlier, Geethan told the court that the investigation officer had attempted to serve the subpoena on June 17 but Manikavasagam had told the officer to meet him the following day in Parliament during lunch break.
On June 18 however, Manikavasagam had contacted the officer and told him to postpone the inquest proceedings since his two lawyers were overseas, he said.
Counsel Datuk K. Kumaraendran who represented Maika Holdings chief excutive officer S. Vell Paari urged the court to issue the warrant arrest.
"It's unbecoming of Manikavasagan who had been dictating terms on whether he wanted to testify in this inquest and he should be compelled to be before this court since he had made all kind of allegations in this case.
"He should be here and give his version of the story since he had lodged several police reports against my client," he said.
Kumaraendran was addressing the court at the inquest into 28-year-old Sujatha's death at Tengku Ampuan Rahimah Hospital in Klang on June 25, 2007, six days after her admission for allegedly drinking weedkiller.
Meanwhile, medical officer Dr K. Saravanan attached to the hospital's Forensics Department testified that he had instructed a medical assistant to release Sujatha's body to her next-of-kin on June 25, 2007 after being told the cause of death had already been stated in the burial permit.
He said that normally, a postmortem would not be conducted on cases where the cause of death had already been confirmed by doctors at the ward and the investigation officer accepted or was satisfied with the doctor's findings.
"In Sujatha's case, the body was released even though the police had issued a form known as Form POL 63 for a postmortem and this practice is not confined to this case alone but in all cases where the cause of death had already been confirmed," he said.
Questioned further by Geethan, Dr Saravanan clarified that since Sujatha's case, the Forensics Department had been complying with the POL 63 form by conducting postmortems.
