The Kuala Lumpur High Court today set Aug 19 to hear an application by lawyers of the mother of missing detainee G Francis Udayappan for a review of a ruling barring them from questioning witnesses at a coroner's inquest.

"The application was delivered at around 12pm today and it was received by the High Court's registry. A date for the revision has been set for Aug 19 before judge Mokhtaruddin Baki," said lawyer N Surendran when contacted by malaysiakini this evening.

The application is being made in relation to a three-day inquest held to identify a highly decomposed body found in the Klang River on May 23.

The inquest, which kicked off on Tuesday with two police witnesses, has since been postponed .

The body had been identified by the detainee's mother, G Sara Lily, as that of her son but subsequent DNA tests conducted by the police using the parent's blood sample and a bone marrow sample from the body failed to reveal a match.

Surendran said the High Court application was filed because an 'interested party' in the case - Sara Lily - had not been allowed to examine and question evidence adduced at the inquest.

"All exhibits (introduced at the inquest) have direct relevance to Francis as it refers to his arrest, detention and (his) alleged escape," Surendran stated in his application.

Medical evidence

Sara Lily's counsel was barred from examining the exhibits and witnesses who are testifying in the inquest after the coroner reduced the counsel's role to that of conducting a watching brief.

The coroner of the inquest, magistrate Nazran Mohd Sham, had held that Sara Lily's legal representative - as well as that Bar Council's - were not an 'interested party' in the proceedings, which was also to ascertain the cause of death to the body.

"Although both the court and the learned deputy public prosecutor confirmed that the inquest is into a John Doe (an unidentified body), all proceedings thus far appear to be into ... Francis," Surendran added.

He further contended that medical evidence such as the DNA test results and post-mortem reports would be brought up at some point during the inquest.

This, he added, would happen "... without Sara Lily's counsel having the right to examine or view the exhibits and witnesses that will have a critical impact on establishing the identity of the body".

"It appears (in these circumstances) that two inquests are being carried out though this has been categorically denied by both the honourable coroner and the learned deputy public prosecutor," he stressed.

Interrogation session

The inquest came about following strong lobbying from Francis' family, human rights organisations and concerned citizens.

Francis' family has always maintained that he died while in police custody after he was arrested on April 14.

However, the police have denied this, claiming that Francis jumped into the Klang river behind the Brickfields district police headquarters while escaping after an interrogation session two days after he was arrested.