Cape Town - State forensic pathologist Akmal Khan has stuck to his guns in the Jason Rohde murder trial by testifying that the property mogul’s wife, Susan, displayed battered wife syndrome.
This is after defence lawyer Graham Van der Spuy questioned Khan’s professionalism and methodology in finding the cause of death.
He questioned whether Khan was an expert on making such a diagnosis.
“As far as findings of the autopsy (are concerned) there are features to make a diagnosis of it. I may have no psychiatric training, but I looked at the bruising injuries of different ages in hidden places such as breasts, thighs and legs; places where people can’t see. In this particular case, she has a healing bruise on her right thigh,” said Khan.
In his report, Khan said the cause of death was consistent with manual strangulation and external airway obstruction.
In court on Wednesday he said blunt force trauma to the chest could have also contributed to her death.
He referred to her murder as a staged strangulation.
Van der Spuy questioned why the pathologist did not consider other possible causes of death.
“Is it possible that death was caused by blunt forced trauma as opposed to manual strangulation? Or the blood found in her stomach?
Khan replied: “The injuries I am seeing are consistent with my findings.”
Van der Spuy asked whether Khan studied the defence’s forensic pathology expert Reggie Perumal’s post-mortem report and whether he had discussed this with Perumal.
He then questioned why Khan never requested photographs from Perumal, to which Khan said the previous State prosecutor told him there were none.