Last Updated on Saturday, 3 May 2025, 12:17 by Writer
The legality of conducting a second autopsy on the body of 11-year-old Adriana Younge is being called into question because police had handed over the body to the family following the first autopsy that was done by the three foreign forensic pathologists, Health Minister Dr Frank Anthony said Saturday.
“The police no longer have custody of the body, so I assume the family can determine whatever they want to do with the body. If they want a second postmortem, they can go and do it. Nobody can stop them,” Dr Anthony told Demerara Waves Online News.
He, however, said a second forensic examination could raise legal questions based on the security of the body.
He explained that it would be the Police who have to prosecute a case in court, and so custody of the body for an autopsy is important.
Dr Anthony doubted that the findings of a second autopsy could be held up in a court of law.
He said that after the girl was pronounced dead, her body was placed in a body bag and sealed.
“If that seal was broken, then you know that that body was tampered with and that body was only opened when they did that autopsy and in the presence of all three of the pathologists,” he said.
The Health Minister said after the body was handed over to the family, “it was not protected in that way; possibly there can be tampering, we don’t know and that’s the challenge.”
But Attorney-at-Law Darren Wade, who is representing Younge’s family, told Demerara Waves Online News that conducting a second autopsy after the body has been handed over is nothing new.
“Foolishness! Rubbish! Most of the time, a second autopsy is conducted when the body is handed over to the family. This is not unique to Guyana, and we have seen several of these cases in recent history in the Commonwealth Caribbean. I will encourage the minister to focus on the medical aspect and leave the law for the lawyers,” he said.
The Health Minister said that while the conclusion by the three foreign pathologists was that Younge died by drowning, specimens were taken from the girl’s lungs, mouth, and private parts and sent to the United States for toxicology and DNA tests.
He said the DNA test was being done to ascertain whether foreign DNA was introduced into the body while the toxicology test would seek to find out if there was any poisoning or abnormality.
“They are going to run all the tests including histopathology, which Mount Sinai would do, DNA and molecular analysis and the comprehensive toxicology would be done by the US Reference Laboratory,” he said.
The Health Minister said those analyses would be done in the same manner as if it was being done in a US investigation.
Dr Anthony said the second autopsy would be entirely up to the family and would depend on the independent Guyana Medical Council’s (GMC) permission for Trinidadian pathologist Dr. Hubert Daisley to do so.
Mr Wade on Saturday said he was preparing to file legal action against the GMC for failing to swiftly approve Dr Daisley’s application to practice here.
He said the GMC two weeks ago on April 16, 2025 granted Dr Daisley a licence in response to an urgent request to conduct a second autopsy on another body on April 17, 2025.
The first autopsy was conducted bv a three-member panel — Dr Shubhakar Karra Paul, an international forensic pathologist based at the Forensic Sciences Centre under the Office of the Attorney General in Barbados, Dr Glenn A. Rudner, a forensic and anatomic pathologist affiliated with Mount Sinai Hospital and the Icahn School of Medicine in New York City, and Trinidad and Tobago-born Chief Medical Examiner of the US State of Delaware, Dr Gary L. Collins.
Asked why there was now need for a second autopsy, Mr Wade referred to his May 2, 2025 letter to the GMC in which he stated that, “the family is seeking this examination for closure and to grieve in peace. They are committed to ensuring that no stone is left unturned in understanding the circumstances surrounding their loved one’s death.”
Mr Wade has since written to President Irfaan Ali reinforcing the need for an independent probe by investigators from the United States Federal Bureau of Investigations, United Kingdom’s Scotland Yard or the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
Opposition Leader Aubrey Norton has taken that call one step further and has requested the President to use those investigators to support the work of a Commission of Inquiry.
The Guyana government has repeatedly committed itself to a thorough investigation but so far there has been no word on whether foreign investigators would be called in due to concerns about a lack of confidence in the Guyana Police Force.
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