KUALA LUMPUR, July 13 — Inspections will be carried out at the tahfiz school in Johor and the home of Mohamad Thaqif Amin Mohd Gaddafi to identify the source of rat urine identified to be the cause of his death.
“We have to be fair in our investigations. We had to find the exact cause of Thaqif’s death because there was no way physical abuse he suffered could have cost him his life,” Deputy Health Minister Datuk Seri Dr Hilmi Yahaya said.
“After hundreds of tests, traces of rat urine were found in his deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA),” he told reporters after the Instructor’s Day celebration at the Allied Health Sciences College here.
Dr Hilmi said the finding, though unexpected, was able the save an assistant warden from the tahfiz school “from being falsely accused of murder”.
He said thorough scientific procedures were conducted by the forensics team before concluding the 11-year-old’s cause of death.
“If our finding did not ascertain that Thaqif died of leptospirosis, the assistant warden could have been charged with murder,” he said.
Dr Hilmi said the ministry would conduct further inspections at Thaqif’s house and at Madrasah Tahfiz Al-Jauhar, where he studied, to locate the source of the disease and if other students had fallen victim.
“We are not ruling out the possibility he might have contracted it at home or at school. We will instruct our field officers to further inspect the areas,” he said.
On the refusal of Thaqif’s mother, Felda Wani Ahmad, 40, to accept the findings her son had died of leptospirosis, Dr Hilmi said the ministry remained firm in defending the autopsy report.
The ministry’s findings were revealed by health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah in a statement to the media on Monday.
The autopsy found Thaqif had died from the disease, which was made complicated by skin necrosis and micro blood coagulation (microthrombi) through the bloodstream.
This caused the change of skin colour and organ failure.
Yesterday event saw 400 lecturers from 32 training institutes under the ministry’s supervision nationwide gather to celebrate Instructor’s Day.
Awards were presented to educators who had shown exemplary traits and contributed to their respective institutions.
* Editor's note: The print version of this story contained an error which has since been corrected here.
