Families of Lagos victims cannot live without certainty

The tragedy of the death of 84 South Africans at a Nigerian church in Lagos last year is far from over, the pain is nowhere near its end.

One family whose daughter was among those killed when a building at the church collapsed has threatened to go to court for an order that the bodies of all the victims be exhumed if the results of independent DNA testing do not confirm that the body they received was that of their child.

The family is adamant that the body they received is not that of their daughter, Phumzile Mkhulisi, 47. The family's suspicions arose after what it claims was state bungling and "unconvincing" statements by South African officials.

Although our government did everything in its power to help repatriate the bodies, it is worrying that one family cannot have closure.

Mkhulisi's brother says h er body could be in any one of 80-odd graves across the country.

It was painful, and outright shocking, that the Nigerian authorities acted at snail's pace to identify the South Africans killed at the church.

Now we are faced with serious allegations that some of the bodies might have been wrongly identified.

This tragedy tells us that the government should add dental records to its identification systems.

Some will say that the government did not send the victims to Nigeria, and that it should be praised for helping to bring the bodies home.

But families have the right to know that they are burying the right body. They cannot be expected to keep quiet when there are doubts about who is in the coffin.

We call on the South African and Nigerian governments to clear up lingering doubts about the identity of some of the dead.

The Mkhulisi family will get closure only when all its questions have been answered.

Monday 23 February 2015

http://www.timeslive.co.za/thetimes/2015/02/22/families-of-lagos-victims-cannot-live-without-certainty

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Cyprus: Buried airplane must be dug up says ECHR

Cyprus must dig up the Nord Noratlas military transport plane buried at the Makedonitissa military cemetery in Nicosia or face sanctions from the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), according to a memo sent by the Legal Services last week.

Per an out-of-court settlement with the relatives of Greek commandos Stefanos Tzilivakis and Kosmas Yiannakakis – who both lost their lives during the Turkish invasion in 1974 – the state agreed to recover the airplane to determine whether their remains were buried with it.

The plane was brought down by friendly fire while trying to land at Nicosia airport and all but one of the soldiers on board died. The soldiers were buried at the Lakatamia military cemetery in Nicosia and in 1979 their remains were sent back to their families in Greece.

DNA testing in 2003 showed that many of the remains were misidentified and that some of the bodies were never accounted for.

It is believed that some of the soldiers may be buried along with the plane.

Both the commandos’ families took Cyprus to the ECHR but settled out of court when the state said it would recover the plane and determine whether anyone was buried with it.

The matter became a cause of alarm for the Legal Services when the families’ lawyer contacted them asking that the recovery work starts immediately. According to the settlement, excavation should begin in 2014.

In a meeting that took place last week, chaired by Commissioner for Humanitarian and Overseas Affairs Fotos Fotiou, it was decided that the state go forth with recovery and that the Cyprus Scientific and Technical Chamber (ETEK) come up with ways of carrying out the recovery but limiting the damage in Makedonitissa.

The Makedonitissa cemetery is a war memorial, built on top of the Nord Noratlas plane.

“This is a totally manageable problem. We still have time to comply and state officials are very aware of the time limitations,” a government source told the Cyprus Mail.

Thanasis Zafeiriou was the only survivor of the plane that was shot down. According to his account, he managed to pry the plane door open before the plane was completely engulfed in flames and jumped out. He was later found unconscious by National Guard soldiers and taken to a hospital.

Wednesday 5 November 2014

http://cyprus-mail.com/2014/11/05/buried-airplane-must-be-dug-up-says-echr/

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Building collapse tragedy: Two families fight over body at morgue

Adding a twist to the building collapse tragedy, members of a family had to bring a body back to the city after discovering it wasn't their kin's, while two other families fought for another body at the Government Royapettah Hospital on Friday.

A mutilated body, mistakenly identified as Prakash Raut, was being transported by his family to home in Kendrapara district in Odisha when it was learnt that Raut was alive and recuperating at Sri Ramachandra Medical Centre.

"The body was identified by his brother as that of 25-yearold Prakash Raut. We completed the legal formalities and sent the body with him for cremation. But when the real Raut emerged from the debris, we immediately called the driver and asked him to return," said a senior health department official.

Raut was on the seventh floor when the building collapsed in Moulivakkam. He was rescued 72 hours later. Officials said the mutilated body, now at the mortuary in Royapettah, was yet to be identified. As Raut's family celebrates, two families are at loggerheads over the identity of a body at the Royapettah mortuary.

Gowri Naidu, 35, and Chinnam Naidu, 45, of Vizianagaram in Andhra Pradesh had died in the building collapse. Their family members have been waiting at the morgue for five days to check if their kin's body had arrived. On Friday, Lokesh saw a mutilated body and claimed it was his father Chinnam Naidu, while another man called Simhasanam said it was that of his brother Gowri Naidu.

Finally, based on the description given by both the families and the doctor's advice, it was decided that the body belonged to Gowri Naidu. " To avoid such confusion, we have collected DNA samples of all the bodies that have arrived from the collapse site. We will run tests if necessary," said a senior doctor.

Meanwhile, to make space for bodies of victims of the tragedy, Government Royapettah Hospital have sent 38 unidentified bodies belonging to victims of road and rail accidents to the mortuaries attached to Government General Hospital and Kilpauk Medical College Hospital.

Saturday 05 July 2014

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/Building-collapse-tragedy-Two-families-fight-over-body-at-morgue/articleshow/37810405.cms

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South Korea admits ferry disaster dead bodies given to wrong families

As visiting President Barack Obama offered South Koreans his condolences Friday for the ferry disaster, the South Korean government conceded that some bodies have been misidentified and announced changes to prevent such mistakes from happening again.

There have been several reports in South Korean media this week of bodies going to the wrong families, with the error sometimes caught only after the remains were taken to a funeral home. An “action plan” released by the government-wide emergency task force acknowledged that “there have been cases where the victims were wrongly transferred.”

Remains will be transferred to families when there is a match using DNA testing or fingerprint or dental records, the task force said. The transfer will be temporary when a body is matched though identification or physical description, and authorities will wait for more authoritative evidence before making the transfer permanent.

Divers have recovered 183 bodies so far, but 119 remain missing and are feared dead in the dark rooms of the submerged vessel.

Search officials including a navy spokesman and a diver said 35 of the ferry’s 111 rooms have been searched so far, Yonhap news agency reported. They said 48 of the bodies recovered were found were in a single large room built to accommodate 38.

The ferry sank April 16 on its way from Incheon port to the southern tourist island of Jeju. More than 80 percent of the 302 dead and missing are students from a single high school in Ansan, south of Seoul.

Friday 25 April 2014

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/25/south-korea-ferry-remains-dead-wrong-families

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Nanded Express fire: wrong body taken to Sedam

DNA profiling to confirm the identity of the persons who died in the Bangalore-Nanded Express fire accident has revealed that the body of Ishwar Nagre, a resident of Aurangabad, had been handed over to the relatives of Bhimayya S., a native of Sedam in Gulbarga.

The case of mistaken identity was realised when one of the DNA profiles of the dead person did not match with that of the relatives.

Officials overseeing the process of releasing the bodies to the relatives confirmed that the body taken away for the last rites by the relatives of Bhimayya, a former member of the Gulbarga Zilla Panchayat, was in fact the body of Ishwar Nagre (70).

On the condition of anonymity, the officials said that the body of Ishwar Nagre was handed over to the relatives of Bhimayya on Saturday night due to “political pressure”. Bhimayya’s body has been interred.

“However, the body will be exhumed and taken to Ishwar Nagre’s native place from Sedam on Wednesday,” the officials added. The body was handed over on the condition that it would not be cremated and that the relatives will exhume it, if DNA profiling did not match, they said.

When contacted over phone, Bhimayya’s relatives in Sedam said that there was no communication to them yet about the DNA match results. The officials, however, expect them to arrive in Bangalore on Wednesday to receive Bhimayya’s body.

Meanwhile, officials of the forensic wing at Victoria Hospital said that the DNA profile of one of the 26 dead persons did not match with that of the relative. But, the officials were quick to attribute this to a “technical reason”. Hence, the officials will now repeat the process.

As most of the bodies were charred beyond recognition, the authorities had to carry out DNA profiling to avoid confusion when relatives came to claim the bodies.

Wednesday 01 January 2014

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/karnataka/nanded-express-fire-wrong-body-taken-to-sedam/article5523616.ece

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Mumbai building collapse: confusion over bodies

Several families were unable to identify the bodies of their near and dear ones at JJ Hospital because they had swelled up and unrecognisable. Lack of coordination between the hospital and the cops added to the confusion.

The Jadhavs were not sure whether the body handed over to them was that of their daughter Pallavi (20).

Pallavi was brought in at J J Hospital at 8 pm on Saturday night after which her maternal aunt Reshma Jadhav identified her body and were given her necklace and bracelet after the due process.

The family said that they filled up a form with the police as well as the senior medical officer present at the time.

Reshma said, “I went up to identify the body of Pallavi’s mother Chitra for around 10 minutes and returned to the hospital on Sunday morning to claim Pallavi’s body after the post-mortem was conducted.”

“I learned that another family called the Gaikwads had taken the body and performed the last rites assuming it was their 17-year-old daughter Komal Gaikwad,” she added.

Reshma went to the medical officer after the mix up and was shown the list in which Pallavi’s name was crossed off and instead Komal Gaikwad’s entry was made.

The family then exchanged heated words with hospital officials as to why they handed over the body to the Gaikwad family.

Hospital officials began to run around to confirm the identity of Pallavi after which J J Dean Tatyarao Lahane, ex-corporator Yeshwant Jadhav and BMC union leader Sanjay Baperkar met with the family for around 10 minutes.

The family who had assumed that they were given Komal Gaikwad’s body was taken back to the morgue along with officials after which the Jadhav family were convinced that it was Pallavi.

Yeshwant Jadhav said, “When we calmed the family down and took them to the morgue, they recognised her earrings as well as a ring that Pallavi wore on the middle finger of her left hand.”

Pallavi’s paternal uncle, Suresh Jadhav confirmed the identification, he said, “Yes we saw the body and are convinced that it is Pallavi.”

The 24-hour drama ended at 8 pm on Sunday, the family is awaiting for the body of Pallavi’s brother Sanket who is yet to be identified. Pallavi’s sister Mansi and her mother Chitra were found dead on Saturday evening. The only survivor is her father Chandrashekar Jadhav (50) who was found with minor injuries after 32 hours of the collapse.

Chandrasheakar is also admitted in J J Hospital, but has not been told about the death of his family members, said his brother Suresh Jadhav.

Monday 30 September 2013

http://freepressjournal.in/now-the-bungle-over-bodies/

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New questions raised over Canberra Air Disaster

New questions have been raised about Australia's most significant air disaster, including a claim that bodies of high profile victims may have been incorrectly identified.

The Canberra Air Disaster in 1940 killed 10 people, including three key members of then prime minister Robert Menzies' cabinet and the chief of the general staff.

It shocked the nation and contributed to the fall of the war-time government, it is said that Mr Menzies never really recovered.

The disaster has always generated debate about how it happened on a clear and still Canberra morning, and who was actually at the controls when the Hudson Bomber plane crashed 73 years ago this week.

Was it the listed pilot Robert 'Bob' Hitchcock or the air minister James Fairbairn?

'More uncertainty'

Andrew Tink sought to answer some of those questions in his book 'Air Disaster Canberra: the plane crash that destroyed a government', which was released in April this year.

"I didn't set out with an opinion, but during the course of writing the book it became clear to me that the air minister James Fairbairn was at the controls when the plane crashed," he said.

"I hesitate to use the word definitive.

"I say the evidence is strong and I'm confident in reaching the conclusion I have an expressing it publicly."

It was feedback from his book that led to Mr Tink's concerns about the identification of bodies.

"After I wrote my book someone approached me to say I got one of the ages of the victims wrong, I went and checked and sure enough that was the case," he said.

"I asked myself how could I have made this mistake, but the mistake was in fact made by the person identifying bodies at the morgue."

The bodies from the front of the plane were not identified or tagged at the scene.

They were examined at the Canberra morgue where one was found to be that of an older man, perhaps mistakenly thought to be Bob Hitchcock.

Mr Tink believes that was actually the body of James Fairbairn.

"The mistake was made by the group captain identifying the bodies, who assumed that Hitchcock was 10 years older than he in fact was," he said.

"The reality was that Hitchcock and Richard Wisener the co-pilot were almost exactly the same age.

"The person who was a little bit more than 10 years older, was Fairbairn."

Which body, which grave?

Mr Tink made his claims public this week at a forum at Questacon in Canberra hosted by the ACT Australian Science Communicators and the Australian and New Zealand Forensic Society.

He says the evidence is definitive that mistakes were made in the identification process, but he would not be drawn on what happened after that and whether bodies were eventually buried in the wrong graves.

"I can't say that, I'd prefer not to go there," he said.

"It's more uncertainty as to who was where [in the plane]."

Shadow of calamity

In 2007, then ABC Stateline producer and director Geoff Crane produced a detailed documentary about the disaster called 'Shadow of Calamity'.

The title is drawn from a speech former prime minister Robert Menzies made in parliament after the crash.

"It is a great calamity, the full significance of which even yet is not fully realised," Mr Menzies said.

"Every man concerned was doing an important war service. Each of my three cabinet colleagues was a man of character and intense loyalty.

"Their loss just does not bear thinking about."

During his research for the documentary, Mr Crane came across evidence of confusion in the process of identifying bodies.

"I've gone as deep as I was able to access and there was no evidence to confirm without reservation who was where in the plane when it crashed," he said.

"There are certainly some questions about the identification process, but the focus of my concern was how the bodies of Hitchcock and co-pilot Richard Wisener were identified.

"I believe there is more chance that the pilots identities were mixed up than there is of them getting Fairbairn wrong.

"The really hard part of human nature is to actually accept that there are some things that we may just never know."

Families reflect

Family members representing all 10 victims gathered at the site of the disaster near Canberra this week to mark the 73rd anniversary of the crash.

It is the first time all the families have been represented since Mr Menzies opened the original memorial at the site in 1960.

The memorial is tucked into scrubland at the end of a rough dirt road, several kilometres off the Queanbeyan road near the Canberra Airport.

It has been vandalised and damaged and the gates are usually locked.

James Fairbairn's granddaughter Mary Browne would like to see the site made more accessible and the disaster itself made more prominent in national history.

"My brother and his wife and children visited Canberra a few years ago and were shocked that the access was closed," she said.

"I think it is really vitally important that everybody can come up and see the place where so many men lost their lives on that day."

The ACT Government is looking at ways to allow better access to the site and in turn provide greater understanding of Australia's most contentious air disaster.

Friday 16 august 2013

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-08-16/new-questions-raised-over-canberra-air-disaster/4893354

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Uganda fuel tanker fire: Families clash over bodies

There was commotion at Mulago Hospital mortuary when four families claimed two bodies, arguing that they were of their relatives who perished in Saturday's inferno.

The bodies are among the eight that were burnt beyond recognition.

The hospital administration and Police withheld the contested bodies until DNA tests are carried out to establish their identities.

Kampala metropolitan spokesperson Ibin Ssenkumbi said some members of the bereaved families claimed they would be able to recognise the bodies of their relatives who were severely burnt. But four different families ended up claiming two bodies.

He said the relatives of the unidentified victims were told to go back to the hospital on Monday, when the DNA results will be released.

Wednesday 3 July 2013

http://allafrica.com/stories/201307031318.html

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Families identify schoolgirl victims of Pakistani bus attack

Weeping relatives gathered yesterday to identify the charred remains of loved ones killed in a double attack in Pakistan's south-west.

At least 25 people were killed on Saturday when militants blew up a bus carrying female students in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province, and then stormed a hospital where survivors had been taken for treatment.

A Sunni militant group, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), which is responsible for a string of attacks against Pakistan's Shiite minority, said it was behind both attacks.

A LeJ spokesman said a female suicide bomber struck the bus, a rare tactic in Pakistan, before gunmen attacked the hospital, claiming the strikes were revenge for an operation by security forces this month.

Militants occupied parts of the Bolan Medical Complex in a standoff that lasted several hours and ended when security forces stormed the building, freeing 35 hostages.

Authorities shut down the hospital yesterday, moving patients to another facility, as investigators combed the grisly aftermath of the violence.

The intensity of the blast and subsequent fire reduced the student bus to a blackened skeleton, and outside the mortuary of the Provincial Sandeman Hospital, weeping relatives gathered to identify bodies.

The state of the bodies added confusion to the relatives' grief, as some were given contradictory information about their loved ones.

Mohammad Hamza, 19, said that on Saturday he had been given the body of his sister, only to be told a mistake had been made.

"I came here after someone had given us the information that we had taken the wrong body and my sister's body was still here at hospital, but it is not true," Mr Hamza said. It appeared the body he was given on Saturday was indeed his sister.

An LeJ spokesman called newspaper offices in Quetta late on Saturday to claim the killings.

Sunday 16 June 2013

http://www.thenational.ae/news/world/south-asia/families-identify-schoolgirl-victims-of-pakistani-bus-attack

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Kosovo: identification of mass grave bodies is complicated

Alan Robinson and Arsim Gërxhaliu explained that the bodies that have not been identified at the Department of Forensic Medicine are the result of incorrectly burial by the family. 2 thousand burials were made without any analysis or dissection. Identification of bones of victims of war is complicated because many dead bodies are buried without DNA analysis.

Considering the very sensitive issue, competent people who deal with this work have accepted to give interview for newspaper but only jointly. They are Alan Robinson, co-director of EULEX in the Department of Forensic Medicine and director of the Department of Forensic Medicine, Arsim Gërxhaliu.

Both have explained that in the Department of Forensic Medicine are still 250 unidentified bodies and 101 parts of skeletons which were exhumed from mass graves in Kosovo and Serbia. Robinson and Gërxhaliu stated that their identification is a very difficult process. For these they think that after the war many burials were made incorrectly. They have also shown that this year will be looking to work in mass graves in Kosovo and Serbia. So far there haven registered 1754 missing persons

Friday 17 May 2013

http://www.gazetatribuna.com/en/?FaqeID=2&LajmID=244

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India: Six killed in Bangalore factory fire

The government has ordered a thorough inquiry into Monday’s fire accident at S R Seating Systems at Kadabagere Cross, Magadi Road, that left six labourers dead.

The Ramanagar district police on Tuesday arrested Amith Rathore, owner of S R Seating Systems and Ramakrishnaiah, the owner of the building where the factory had been housed, on the charges of criminal negligence.

The two will be produced before a magistrate court on Wednesday and the police are expected to seek their custody for further investigation into the case.

Ramalingappa, Deputy Superintendent of Police, Ramanagar, will head the special team formed to probe the accident. The arrests were made based on the case registered at the Tavarekere police station.

Meanwhile, of the seven men working in the factory, six were found dead in the blaze. The seventh, suspected to have gone out for tea early in the morning after locking the shutters from outside, is missing.

It had been said that the lone survivor was Nadeem Khan. However, after the bodies were shifted to Rajarajeshwari Medical College and Hospital at Kengeri and autopsies performed on Monday night, Shamsuddin, the younger brother of Sartaj, identified Nadeem Khan as among the dead and said it was Noor Hussein who was missing.

Anupam Agarwal, Superintendent of Police, Ramanagar, said: “All were working under Sartaj, the elder brother of Shamsuddin, who had brought them from Bijnore in Uttar Pradesh. During autopsy, faces of all the bodies were cleaned and this might have resulted in correct identification. There might have been some confusion at the accident spot leading to false identification.”

Lakshman, purchase manager, S R Seating Systems, had identified the six dead bodies as those of Sartaj, 28, the supervisor, Noor Hussein (28), Shoaib (22), Gazi (20), Usman (18) and Talib (24). He too had said Nadeem Khan was missing.

Bodies airlifted

After autopsy, all the six bodies were airlifted to Lucknow and from there to Bijnore. The bodies left Bengaluru International Airport by a special flight, Agarwal said. The Ramanagar police have launched a manhunt for Noor Hussein. Ramalingappa said till Hussein was traced, nothing could be said of the origin of the fire and how the factory shutter was locked from outside. He did not rule out foul play.

The forensic team and the electricity board officials who inspected the scene of fire are expected to submit their report in a day or two. Sources in the Forensic Lab said they were yet to trace the origin of the fire.

The electricity board engineers said though the power connection was illegal and taken on a temporary basis for construction purposes, they have not been able to establish that the fire was triggered by a short circuit.

Labour Minister B N Bache Gowda, who visited the spot, said the labour department would inquire into the lack of labour safety measures and abject conditions in which the workers were forced to work. Ravi Kumar, Assistant Labour Commissioner, will head the probe.

He also said he would talk to Chief Minister Jagadish Shettar for releasing compensation from the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund to the families of the six victims.

Wednesday 27 March 2013

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/321933/factory-building-owners-held-fire.html

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Two more bodies mixed up in Polish plane disaster

Polish officials say two more victims of the country's April 2010 air crash that killed 96 people including Polish president Lech Kaczynski have been wrongly identified and buried.

Four other victims had previously been subject to mix-ups, including Poland's last leader-in-exile Ryszard Kaczorowski, who was reburied earlier this month.

It emerged on Wednesday the remains of two priests had been mixed up and they had been interred in each other's graves, one at Warsaw's soaring Temple of Divine Providence and the other at a cemetery in the capital's suburb of Pyry.

Fresh DNA tests confirmed their identities after their remains were exhumed last week.

The remains of Anna Walentynowicz, Poland's communist Solidarity trade union heroine, were reburied in September after they were found to have been misidentified.

The presidential jet went down on April 10, 2010, as it tried to land in thick fog at the airport in Smolensk, western Russia, ahead of a ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of the Soviet slaying of thousands of Polish prisoners of war.

All 96 people on board died, and while pilot error and the ageing facilities at the airport were ruled to be behind the crash, many in Poland give credence to conspiracy theories blaming age-old foe Moscow.

In October, Polish prosecutors denied reports that traces of explosives had been found in the wreckage.

Thursday 22 November 2012

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-11-22/two-more-bodies-mixed-up-in-polish-plane-disaster/4385384

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Warsaw exhumes two more Smolensk victims

Two male victims of the 2010 Smolensk air disaster were exhumed in Warsaw on Monday morning, owing to concerns that the deceased were buried in the wrong graves.

The process began at 4 am local time at the Temple of Divine Providence (Warsaw's new national pantheon), and a cemetery in the district of Pyry, south Warsaw.

Although the names of the victims have not been released, unofficially, it is understood that the exhumations concern Father Zdzislaw Krol, Chaplain of the Katyn Families, and Professor Ryszard Rumianek, former rector of the Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski University.

Military Prosecutor Captain Andrzej Wicharski made a statement to reporters at the Temple of Divine Providence this morning.

“Concerns that the bodies may have been exchanged arose after studying documents produced by the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, as well as due to opinions of Polish experts” he said, as quoted by the Polish Press Agency (PAP).

“Most probably, in spite of correct identification by the families [of the victims], the bodies were mistakenly identified by the Russian side during procedures carried out at the Institute of Forensic Medicine in Moscow.”

Captain Wicharski disclosed that the remains will now be taken or initial tests to the Department of Forensic Medicine at Krakow's Jagiellionian University, and then to Wroclaw, south west Poland, where the full autopsies and DNA tests will be carried out.

All in all, there have been nine exhumations of Smolensk victims to date. Four of these victims were buried in the wrong graves, as proved by the last two waves of exhumations this autumn, counting former President of the Polish government-in-exile Ryszard Kaczorowski, Solidarity activist Anna Walentynowicz, and two other victims whose names have not been disclosed, owing to the families' wishes.

The 2010 Smolensk air disaster occurred as the delegation of President Lech Kaczynski flew to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Katyn Crime, marking the execution of over 22,000 Polish officers by Soviet secret police (NKVD).

All 96 Poles aboard the plane died in the crash.

Monday 12 November 2012

http://www.thenews.pl/1/9/Artykul/118101,Warsaw-exhumes-two-more-Smolensk-victims-

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Nerul teen's death on tracks shocks family, hospital adds to trauma, hands wrong body

It was a double tragedy for the family of HSC student Rakesh Pote (18), who was one of the three youths killed near the railway tracks between Nerul and Juinagar on Thursday.

Rakesh's body was wrongly claimed from the municipal morgue at Vashi by the family of the second deceased, Rahul Ghodke (19), who was Rakesh's classmate. Both the boys lived in Sarsole village, Nerul, and had gone with a third friend, Santosh Malekar (17), towards Nerul after lunch on Thursday. However, they were later found dead on the tracks with severe head injuries and multiple fractures. All three were class XII students of Shiravane Vidyalaya & Junior College in Nerul, Sector 2.

Talking to TOI on Friday, Rakesh's uncle Ramdas Pote, said: "On Thursday evening we were shocked to learn that our boy (Rakesh) was killed along with two of his friends near the railway tracks. We told the NMMC hospital authorities that we will claim the body on Friday morning as many relatives were yet to arrive in Navi Mumbai for the last rites."

But the family was in for another shock as they learnt that Rakesh's body was not there in the Vashi morgue on Friday morning. "Rakesh's body had been wrongly claimed by another victim's family on Thursday night and already cremated near Nashik. We are very disturbed about this.''

Rahul Ghodke's family had somehow taken away the body of Rakesh to their native place at Alephata on Nashik Road and cremated it. When informed about the mix-up, Rahul's family rushed back to the morgue to claim the right body and conducted the last rites again. They also handed over Rakesh's ashes to his grieving family members so that they could perform a special puja.

When TOI contacted the Vashi municipal hospital, the authorities refused to take any blame for the situation. "The railway police gave us the three bodies of the youths for post-mortem on Thursday. Later, we handed the bodies back to the railway police in order to be given to their respective families. It is unfortunate that such a mix-up took place,'' said a senior official at the hospital.

However, senior inspector of Vashi GRP, Purushottam Karyakarte, blamed the hospital. "The hospital should have at least properly labeled the bodies and given them to the right families. In situations like these, the family is usually in a state of shock and is therefore not in a position to identify the body," he said.

"We are still investigating how the three boys died on the tracks. By Friday afternoon, all the three bodies had been claimed, though we are not aware if one body was wrongly claimed,'' said an official.

Saturday 10 November 2012

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/Nerul-teens-death-on-tracks-shocks-family-hospital-adds-to-trauma-hands-wrong-body/articleshow/17162585.cms

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9 tsunami victims’ remains misidentified, given to wrong families

A Japanese newspaper has uncovered that there was a misidentification of the bodies of nine tsunami disaster victims, and thus returned to the wrong families. Japan’s National Police Agency told the Yomiuri Shimbun that in their efforts to return the remains to relatives looking for closure as quickly as possible, they did not allow enough time for a thorough examination of dental and DNA records.

The authorities say eight those incorrectly identified were from different towns in Iwate Prefecture, consisting of one man and seven women, all in ages from their 60s to 90s. The ninth was found in Miyagi Prefecture, and police say it was given to family looking for a 78 year old man almost immediately after the March 11th, 2011 disasters. In the first month alone after the earthquake and tsunami, roughly 13,000 bodies were taken to makeshift morgues in order to be identified. Police officers, doctors, and dentists were among those confronting the task, but there was often little power or water supplies, and the greatest hurdle was that so many dental and medical records were lost in the tsunami‘s waves.

Because of these circumstances, some bodies were given to families who insisted that they had found and identified their missing relatives. The misidentifications were discovered when the real families of those given away came to police after seeing photos taken of those who were at the morgues. The issue was corrected and the police of Iwate had given apologies to all the families involved by August, as well as got the remains back to their correct relatives.

Tuesday 6 November 2012

http://japandailypress.com/9-tsunami-victims-remains-misidentified-given-to-wrong-families-0617906

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Last 'president-in-exile' reburial after misidentification

Smolensk disaster victim Ryszard Kaczorowski has been re-buried at Warsaw's Temple of Divine Providence after exhumation confirmed he was originally buried in the wrong grave.

After a mass celebrated by cardinal Kazimierz Nycz, the Metropolitan Bishop of Warsaw, the remains of Ryszard Kaczorowski, Poland's last president-in-exile, were interred in the Pantheon of Prominent Poles.

Ryszard Kaczorowski was one of ninety six victims of the plane crash in Russia in April 2010, in which President Lech Kaczynski was also killed.

Last month it was revealed that as a result of a mistake in the identification of the bodies of the victims, the body that had been buried in the Temple of Divide Province in 2010 was not that of President Kaczorowski.

His remains were mixed up with the body of another victim, buried at Warsaw’s Powązki cemetery. The two exhumations were carried last month.

The re-burial follows a similar mix-up over the remains of Anna Walentynowicz – one of the initiators of the 1980 Solidarity strikes – who also died in the Smolensk disaster.

The Royal Sigismund Bell, which hangs from the tower of the Wawel Cathedral in Krakow, tolled during the ceremony on Saturday. Regarded as one of Poland’s national symbols, the bell tolls on religious and national holidays, as well as on very special occasions.

Among those attending the re-burial ceremony, apart from the late President’s family, were the First Lady Anna Komorowska and the Head of the Presidential Chancellery Jacek Michalowski.

Prime Minister Donald Tusk expressed his deepest sympathies for those who had to endure such dramatic and sorrowful moments in connecetion with the necessity for exhumations and reburials. An apology was also made by Jacek Najder, former deputy foreign minister, who was directly responsible for the wrong identification of Ryszard Kaczorowski’s body.

Ryszard Kaczorowski was born in 1919. In 1940 he was arrested by the Soviet NKVD police and sentenced to death for his activities in the Polish Scouting Association. The sentence was later changed to ten years in a concentration camp in Siberia.

Following the Sikorski-Mayski Agreement of 1941, Kaczorowski was set free and joined the General Anders’s Army and fought in most battles of the Polish Second Corps, including the Battle of Monte Casino.

After the war, he settled in Britain as a political émigré.

In July 1989, he was appointed Poland’s president-in-exile and held the post for seventeen months.

On 22 December 1990 he handed over the insignia of the presidential power to Lech Wałęsa, the first democratically elected president after World War Two.

Saturday 3 November 2012

http://www.thenews.pl/1/10/Artykul/117302,Last-presidentinexile-reburial-after-botched-remains-identification

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Prosecutor confirms second burial mix-up of Smolensk victims

Military prosecutors have confirmed that the last president of Poland's Cold War-era government-in-exile was laid to rest at the wrong site following the 2010 Smolensk air disaster.

According to Ireneusz Szelag, Chief Warsaw Military Prosecutor, the mistake occurred due to incorrect identifications made in Russia following the April 2010 plane crash.

President Ryszard Kaczorowski's family did not take part in that initial identification process.

A second male victim, whose name has not been disclosed to the media owing to the family's wishes, was mistakenly entombed at Warsaw's national pantheon, the Temple of Divine Providence, in place of the late president.

“DNA tests have led to the conclusion that due to misidentification, the bodies were buried in the wrong graves,” Szelag said at a press conference on Tuesday.

“The bodies were not changed,” he claimed.

Szelag noted that the families have already been informed of the mistake.

The exhumations took place on Monday 22 October.

They follow the confirmation last month that two other crash victims, including the late Solidarity activist Anna Walentynowicz, were also buried in the wrong graves.

Seven victims of the April 2010 crash have now been exhumed, and it has been confirmed that two more exhumations are due to occur this year

President Kaczorowski was the last leader of the Polish government-in-exile in London, which remained in Britain following World War II owing to the installation of a communist regime in Poland.

Tthe presidential insignia was finally returned to Poland in December 1990 by Kaczorowski himself, following the collapse of the Iron Curtain.

Wednesday 31 October 2012

http://www.thenews.pl/1/9/Artykul/116948,Prosecutor-confirms-second-burial-mixup-of-Smolensk-victims

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Smolensk disaster victim identification

th the body of Tadeusz Lutoborski, the chairman of the Katyń Families organization, both of whom were victims of the April 10, 2010 airplane crash in Smolensk that killed 96 people, radio station RMF FM quotes unnamed investigators as saying.

Polish prosecutors haven’t confirmed the reports.

On Monday last week, the bodies of Mr Kaczorowski and Mr Lutoborski were exhumed. They were then transferred to the department of forensic medicine at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, where the bodies were examined using a CT scan. DNA samples were also taken.

“We are still waiting for the DNA results, and this could take up to seven days,” the Chief Military Prosecutor’s Office spokesperson Zbigniew Rzepa told TVN24 last week.

Earlier in October reports surfaced that an official from the Polish Foreign Ministry had made a mistake and misidentified the bodies during the post-crash identification process. Polish online news provider Onet.pl reported that more exhumations could be in store, all of which are a result of procedural errors made in the aftermath of the catastrophe.

Mr Kaczorowski’s was the sixth body to have been exhumed so far. Prosecutors have decided to go ahead with the exhumation after analyzing medical records, which pointed to errors that could have led to victims’ bodies being misidentified.

In September, the bodies of two Smolensk victims were exhumed, one in Warsaw and one in Kraków. Following DNA testing, prosecutors confirmed that the bodies of Anna Walentynowicz, legendary activist of the Solidarity trade union movement, and Teresa Walewska-Przyjałkowska, vice-president of the Golgotha of the East foundation, had been switched.

Monday 29 October 2012

http://www.wbj.pl/article-60819-spotlight-smolensk-disaster-victim-identification.html

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Mother who spent 32 years tending son's grave despite doubts it was his body is finally vindicated after DNA proves remains of John Wayne Gacy victim are NOT her boy

As Sherry Marino made her way to the cemetery on Wednesday to tend the grave marked with her son’s name, she got a call from her lawyers - the body wasn't his.

It was the news she had been waiting more than 30 years to hear. Tests had confirmed that the remains of one of John Wayne Gacy’s victims which police told her in 1980 were her missing son Michael Marino did not match her DNA.

In 1978, police identified one of the bodies found on Gacy’s property in Norwood Park Township, Illinois as her son. He was 14 when he disappeared in 1976 and investigators had used dental records to identify him in 1980.

For years Marino had fought to have the grave exhumed and now almost 36 years after her son first disappeared her long-held misgivings were proved to be well-founded.

Scientists at a North Carolina laboratory compared bone DNA of the victim to that provided by Sherry Marino and determined that they could not be related.

'We are very happy that we followed through because her suspicions were 100 percent correct,' Steven Becker, who represents Sherry Marino, told the Chicago Sun-Times.

'She hopes the information about his misidentification will bring more leads to find Michael.'

After years of tending the grave, but convinced that it wasn't Michael, Marino approached Becker and Robert Stephenson of Becker Stephenson, who agreed to work on her behalf, pro bono.

After fighting bureaucracy, they succeeded in finally having the body unearthed.

Late last year, Sherry Marino requested that the body, one of more than two dozen found in the crawlspace of Gacy's home in late 1978, be exhumed to determine if the remains buried at the cemetery were her son's.

Days later, the Cook County Sheriff's department said it had exhumed the remains of several young men believed to be, but never identified, as Gacy victims.

During last year's hearing, Sherry Marino's attorneys said she wondered why the clothes on the remains did not match the clothing she remembers seeing her son wear the day he disappeared.

Further, they said she never understood why it took more than three years to identify her son, despite the fact that she provided dental records shortly after the bodies were discovered.

Even her attorneys has acknowledged that there was strong circumstantial evidence that the remains - identified as 'body 14' - were those of Michael Marino, including that the remains were found in Gacy's crawl space next to those of Marino's friend, Kenneth Parker, who disappeared the same day.

The orthodontist who initially examined Gacy's victims remains convinced his findings are correct.

'The dental identification is just 100 percent solid, absolutely no question,' said Dr. Edward Pavlik. 'We compared 32 teeth, probably half a dozen of them had very distinct fillings and every tooth was consistent with the dental records of Michael Marino.'

The attorneys said Thursday that the lab's findings do not necessarily mean Marino was not a Gacy victim, but that it raises questions, such as whether other victims may have been misidentified.

'We don't know where Michael Marino is but what we do know is he's not buried in Queen of Heaven Cemetery under a tombstone that says "Michael Marino,"' Becker said.

Gacy, a building contractor and amateur clown, was convicted of luring 33 young men and boys to Chicago-area home and strangling them between 1972 and 1978, sentenced to death and executed in 1994.

Saturday 27 October 2012

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2223575/DNA-proves-remains-John-Wayne-Gacy-victim-Michael-Marino-NOT-his.html

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'Dead' man surprises family by walking into his own funeral - while identical looking murder victim lies in casket

Another example of the risks of visual identification:

A family gathering to mourn the death of a relative were shocked to tears and fainting when the deceased man in question pitched up at his own funeral on Tuesday.

In a bizarre case of mistaken identity, news of car washer Gilberto Araujo's murder had been relayed to the family by local police in Sao Paulo, Brazil on Sunday.

Shortly after, when the wayward vagabond's brother was called into the morgue to make a positive identification on the body, he saw his brother lying on the table and took the corpse home so his family could hold a wake.

Jose Marcos Araujo was so fooled by the likeness of fellow car washer Genivaldo Santos Gama to his brother Gilberto, that he mistakenly confirmed the body to be his sibling's.

Police inspector Roberto Lima said that Jose Marcos took the body to his mother's Alagoinhas home where a wake was held on Tuesday

'The confusion started when news started circulating that a car washer had been shot dead,' Jose Marcos' wife, Ana Paula, told the UOL Internet news portal.

'Police called my husband and told him that his brother had been killed and his body was at the morgue,' she explained.

Lima said the confusion was 'understandable.'

'The two men closely resembled each other and both worked as car washers,' Lima said adding that no further information on Gama was immediately available.

According to Gawker, the family had not seen or heard from Mr Araujo in the four months before the vexing case of mistaken identity.

A few hours before the Monday burial 'a friend of Gilberto's saw him walking down the street and told him that his family was mourning him,' he said.

'So he went to his mother's home to let everyone know he was very much alive.'

When Araujo showed up at his wake 'some people fainted and others were so scared they ran away. It was a big shock,' family friend Maria Menezes told the G1 online news site.

Gilberto's mother Marina Santana told reporters: 'I am overjoyed. What mother wouldn't be after being told that her son is dead and then sees him alive.'

Wednesday 24 October 2012

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2222241/Man-alive-funeral-familys-shock-identical-looking-murder-victim-lies-casket.html#ixzz2AClU1i75

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