Body found floating in Padawan river, police awaiting postmortem

The body found floating in Sungai Semedang, Kampung Danu yesterday.

KUCHING: The decomposing body of a man was found floating in Sungai Semedang, Kampung Danu, Padawan near here yesterday.

The victim’s body was found by a tour guide lying face down near a rock dressed only in a pair of brown shorts with no identification documents or valuables.

The deceased was later identified as Norman Kho Gee Lin, 32, from Kota Samarahan.

Deputy district police chief DSP Merbin Lisa said they received a call at 12.50pm yesterday about a body floating in the river some 20 kilometres from the Kuching-Serian Road.

According to Merbin, the body was brought ashore by firefighters and forensic team from the state police headquarters performed subsequently inspected the body.

From the examination, they discovered two wounds on the victim’s body, each two-inches deep on the back and another under the right armpit.

Further checks around the area where the body was found yielded a black sedan vehicle parked about one kilometre from the body, believed to be the victim’s car. Witnesses said the car had been left unattended for about three days.

From initial investigations, the victim’s wife said she last spoke to the victim last Tuesday at 2pm and claimed that the victim could not be contacted nor traced ever since, which led her to lodge a missing persons’ report the following day (Wednesday) at 3.25pm at the Kota Samarahan police station.

She revealed that the victim was the owner of a pub along Jalan Song that has been operating for four years. She also told police that the deceased owed a considerable amount of money to loan sharks.

The body has been sent to the Sarawak General Hospital for a postmortem. The case is currently classified as sudden death, pending the postmortem report.

Source : Borneo Post