Thai pathologist to return and testify in TBH inquest

Bernama

PUTRAJAYA: Thai forensic pathologist Dr Pornthip Rojanasunand will be returning to Malaysia to testify in the Teoh Beng Hock inquest.

Counsel Gobind Singh Deo, who is holding a watching brief for Teoh’s family, said he had received a letter from Thailand’s Ministry of Justice confirming Dr Pornthip’s attendance in the inquest.

“Tomorrow, we will inform the court about this and request the court to give another date to enable her to come and testify,” Gobind told reporters at the Palace of Justice here today.

He would also withdraw their application for Dr Pornthip to testify in the inquest via live-video conferencing, he added.

The inquest will resume tomorrow with the Coroner’s Court to decide whether to allow her to testify through a video link.

Dr Pornthip was hired by the Selangor Government to testify in the inquest into Teoh’s death but after her initial appearance in the inquest, had claimed that she was being pressured by certain quarters not to resume her testimony and feared for her safety.

Teoh, 30, was found dead on the fifth floor of Plaza Masalam in Shah Alam on July 16, last year, after an overnight interrogation at the MACC office, located on the 14th floor of the same building, as part of investigations into alleged irregular disbursement of state funds.

In her earlier testimony, Dr Pornthip had said that from the post-mortem, there was an 80 percent probability that Teoh’s death was homicide and 20 per cent chance of it being suicide.

Based on Dr Pornthip’s earlier testimony, Teoh’s remains were subsequently exhumed for a second post-mortem.

Subsequently, British expert, Professor Dr Peter Vanezis, who testified for the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC), said Teoh was fully conscious when he fell and there was no evidence that the political aide was strangled prior to his death.