Full forensic autopsy needed on Absalon cousins – expert
MANILA, Philippines — A full forensic autopsy is required to determine whether footballer Kieth Absalon and his labor leader cousin Nolvin Absalon were actually shot as claimed by the military, a forensic expert said.
Forensic pathologist Raquel Fortun told Philstar.com that Masbate City Health Officer Victoria Manalo only conducted an external examination on the bodies of the two men, when other procedures like X-rays should have been done.
“This requires a full forensic autopsy and crime scene investigation, a full forensic investigation,” Fortun said in an online exchange.
A full forensic investigation, she said, would answer a lot of questions surrounding the blast that killed the Absalon cousins last week, including if they were finished off by being shot.
“To finish the victim off, you aim for usual head and chest fatal shots. In this case, shoulder and thigh gunshot wounds? Report says gunshot wound near eye, but again, I ask what’s the doctor’s basis for identifying them as a gunshot wound,” she said.
‘Weird’
Philstar.com provided Fortun a copy of the necropsy reports prepared by Manalo, which was leaked Wednesday to reporters.
The necropsy reports said that Kieth, 21, sustained a gunshot wound in the right eye, while Nolvin, 38, had gunshot wounds on his right shoulder blade and his thigh.
Fortun said it was “weird” for Manalo to have called some of the injuries sustained by the Absalons as gunshot wounds, one of which was 5 centimeters by 5 centimeters in size.
“She probably saw lacerations consistent with blast injuries,” Fortun said.
Asked if the necropsy reports done on the Absalons are inconclusive, she said, “Inconclusive is kind,” followed by a face with rolling eyes emoji.
The Communist Party of the Philippines and its armed wing, the New People’s Army have owned up to the killing of the two men and apologized for the “errors in the military action mounted by an NPA unit.”
Rights monitors and government officials widely condemned the killing of the Absalons, with them calling for justice for their deaths.
The government is insisting that the CPP and the NPA turn over the combatants behind the blast that killed the Absalons so they can face justice before Philippine courts.
But this is unlikely as the CPP, which claims to have established a government in its strongholds, has maintained that it has jurisdiction over its own personnel and will punish them according to their own rules.
- Latest
- Trending
