The Jakarta Post, JAKARTA | Sat, 04/04/2009 11:48 AM
Singapore’s Nanyang Technology University (NTU) has finally sent the autopsy report of David Hartanto Widjaja, an Indonesian student who died on its campus last month, to his family.
“We have received a scanned copy of the report by e-mail,” William Hartanto, David’s older brother, told The Jakarta Post on Friday by telephone.
He added that at first the university had offered to send the report by a courier service.
“The report mostly contained medical terms. Thus, we will seek professional help to decipher them,” William said, refusing to divulge the contents of the report.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Teguh Wardoyo said his office received no notification regarding the report.
“It was Singapore’s initiative to send it directly to the family and we cannot object to that,” he said.
On March 3, 2008, David was found dead after plunging from the third floor of a building on the NTU campus.
Singaporean authorities believe that the young man slashed his wrist and jumped to his death after stabbing a professor.
However, his family has refused to believe this story, saying that David was not the kind of person who would act violently towards another person or himself.
“There were no eyewitnesses who saw my brother stab the professor or jump from the third floor. The reports were all based on the professor’s own words,” William said earlier this week.
He added that when he flew to Singapore to claim the body, he saw no indication that his brother had tried to slash his wrist.
“There was no blood flowing from his hands or arms, but there was some on his backside and legs, so why did they say he slashed his wrists?” he said.
William says that Singaporean authorities made it difficult for the family, who flew to Singapore a day after the incident, to see David’s body.
“The scene was immediately cleared and we were not allowed to see the body of David right away,” he said.
Two other deaths on the NTU campus came soon after David’s. Zhou Zheng, a 24-year old researcher at the university’s laboratory was found hanging, dead, in an apartment on the campus.
Not long after, 29 year-old Hu Kunlun, another researcher, was hit by a car on his way to the campus. Both researchers were Chinese citizens.
The incident has caused a stir among Indonesians, with conspiracy theories being circulated and talk of revolutionary technology being invented by the 21-year old David.
Blogger Iwan Piliang has suggested that the confiscation of David’s computer and cellular phone by the Singaporean police proves that David’s thesis, which involved three-dimensional face recognition technology, was of high economic value.
“There may have been people with vested interests behind David’s death because of his research findings,” he told journalists earlier this week.
Yayan Mulyana, spokesperson for the Indonesian Embassy in Singapore, said that the embassy was yet to receive the autopsy report.
“We will ensure that the investigation is well conducted and that David’s family will obtain justice in this case,” he said. (dis)
No comments:
Post a Comment