Wrong dead son: Saifuddin to reimburse family’s cremation expenses

 

PARLIAMENT | Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail said he will personally reimburse the cremation expenses to the family who was wrongfully informed of their son’s death in prison and almost cremated the body they brought home.

M Kulasegaran (Pakatan Harapan-Ipoh Barat) earlier said the family had spent between RM20,000 to RM30,000 preparing for the cremation.

“On the family’s expenses, I myself will pay the compensation, there is no issue. Please inform them directly, we can deliver (the reimbursement) tomorrow because they have already made preparations.

“It is unfair to them because it was not their son who passed away. Maybe they are from a poor family.

“An RM20,000 expense is huge, so I will resolve this in less than 48 hours,” Saifuddin replied to Kulasegaran while delivering his winding-up speech on the Budget 2023 debate in the Dewan Rakyat today.

Saifuddin also explained that the family was called to identify the body of the deceased at the Sungai Buloh Hospital but perhaps the post-mortem may have complicated the identification process for the family.

He acknowledged there were elements of negligence and weaknesses in the system which caused the mix-up during the identification process.

As such, he said he has already instructed a committee to be formed to look into this matter.

“My orders are that there can be no compromise towards negligence.

“We will always take steps to improve, whether the existing system is sufficient in terms of the identification process and whether we need to explore other ideas, we are open to it,” he said.

M Kulasegaran (Pakatan Harapan-Ipoh Barat)

Kulasegaran had previously urged the government to conduct an independent investigation into the incident of the family wrongfully informed of their son’s death in prison.

On March 5, the family in Negeri Sembilan, who had mourned for several days over the supposed death of their son while in custody in Sungai Buloh Prison on Feb 28, was shocked to find out their son was still alive.

A few hours before they were to cremate the body they received, the family was informed by prison authorities via a video call that their 19-year-old son is alive in his cell.

The father was quoted as saying that he had noticed the body did not resemble his son after post-mortem because “there were suture marks, besides the hair had also been shaved”. - Mkini