I wasn’t given statements of witnesses, forensic doctor tells inquest

Dr Ahmad Hafizam Hasmi says he had only read news reports of what was said by witnesses on the temple riot.

SHAH ALAM: A forensic doctor told the inquest into the death of fireman Muhammad Adib Mohd Kassim that he was not given statements recorded from eyewitnesses during the Seafield temple riot before he gave his expert views to the court.

Hospital Kuala Lumpur’s (HKL) Dr Ahmad Hafizam Hasmi said that he had only read news reports of what was said by witnesses on the riot.

“This is an open inquiry. That does not mean I obtained the official witness statements directly,” he said, when asked by the lawyer for the housing and local government ministry, Syazlin Mansor.

The lawyer had questioned Hafizam on his previous testimony that he ruled out chances that Adib was sandwiched between two vehicles during the Nov 27, 2018 riot.

Hafizam said he was aware an eyewitness claimed that he saw Adib being squeezed in between two vehicles.

“However, the testimony does not match what I had found during the post-mortem examination and what Dr Mohd Shah Mahmood found in his clinical examination,” he added, referring to his superior, Dr Shah.

When pressed by Syazlin about his experiment on the possibility that Adib sustained injuries on his right chest and arm when falling onto a road curb, Hafizam said he did not state road curb as the conclusion for the injuries on the chest and arm.

“There is 1,001 ways how a person can fall and sustain injuries.

“In our case today, I cannot say the road curb is the cause of his chest and arm injuries,” he said.

Hafizam added that reconstruction of event exercises were meant to try and replicate the victim’s injuries.

Syazlin then proceeded to ask Hafizam on why he had included the road curb as a reason for the right chest injury. Hafizam reiterated that the road curb was only a suggestion.

“The reconstruction was done after he died and things have changed there,” the doctor said.

The inquest was called by the government amid conflicting claims on the cause of Adib’s death.

Adib was part of a response team sent from the Subang Jaya fire and rescue station on Nov 27, 2018 to the temple area in Seafield in answer to a call that cars had been set on fire. He died at the National Heart Institute on Dec 17.

The hearing continues tomorrow before coroner Rofiah Mohamad. - FMT