Najib denies preventing Pornthip from conducting post moterm

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak on Friday refuted an allegation by the opposition that he had prevented Thai forensic expert Dr Pornthip Rojanasunand from conducting a second post mortem on a security guard, C.Sugumar, who was allegedly beaten to death by the police.

"It is not true...these are all fairy tales. Don't listen to it. Not at all," he told reporters after opening the Perak Urban Transformation Centre (UTC) in Ipoh.

The prime minister said this in response to news portal reports which quoted the PKR vice-president N.Surendran as saying that Najib had communicated with Thai Prime Minister Yingluck to stop Dr Pornthip from conducting the post-mortem on Sugumar.

Surendran claimed that as a result of that, the Thai government decided that Dr Pornthip should not conduct the post-mortem so as not to undermine relations between the two countries.

In the Jan 23 incident, Sugumar, believed to be a mentally disturbed man, ran amok and damaged public property using an iron road. He was said to have reacted aggressively when police, with the help of passers-by, wanted to apprehend him. The man passed out in the police car while being taken to a hospital.