Body mix-up: Malaysian minister to reimburse family’s funeral expenses
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Mr Chantren said he received a call from the prison authorities telling him that his son had died in jail.
PHOTO: THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK
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PETALING JAYA –The family who was wrongly notified of their son’s death
“I will pay the compensation of RM20,000 myself because they have made preparations and it isn’t fair to them,” he said in Parliament on Wednesday.
“They might be a poor family, and RM20,000 is a big amount. So, I will settle this issue in less than 48 hours.”
Datuk Seri Saifuddin was responding to a question from Pakatan Harapan MP M. Kulasegaran on whether the shell-shocked family would be compensated as they had spent a large amount on funeral expenses, only to be told hours before the cremation that the body was not that of their kin.
The family’s ordeal started when the father, who wanted to be identified only as Mr Chantren, received a call from the prison authorities on March 1 to tell him that his son had died in jail.
He claimed the body he was told was that of his 19-year-old son, and noticed that the face looked different from his son’s.
Nevertheless, Mr Chantren made preparations for the funeral rites at their family home in Negeri Sembilan and made arrangements to cremate the body.
However, to the family’s surprise, they were informed by the prison authorities via a video call just a few hours before the cremation that Mr Chantren’s son was still alive, and that they had another person’s body at the funeral. THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK
