It's confirmed. The body is that of missing police detainee G Francis Udayappan.

With this ruling today, Kuala Lumpur magistrate Mohd Nazran Mohd Sham ended a two-year tussle between an anguished mother, G Sara Lily ( right ), and the police.

However, the court held that there were no elements of foul play in the death of the 24-year-old despatch clerk.

Mohd Nazran was acting as a coroner into the inquest to determine the identity of a highly-decomposed body lying in the Universiti Malaya Medical Centre morgue and circumstances of its death.

Francis was said to have escaped from custody in 16 April, 2004, after he was detained in connection with a theft case and held at the Brickfields district police headquarters.

A month later, the decomposed remains were fished out from the Klang river.

Although a DNA test failed to prove a match, Sara Lily insisted that the remains were that of her son. She had also accused the police of beating Francis to death and dumping his body into the river. This has been denied.

Reasonable grounds

In reaching the verdict, Nazran said based on the clothes, height, gender, relevant period of death and discovery of the body, there are "reasonable grounds to suspect" that the deceased is Francis ( left ).

He also said that the DNA report which had denied a link between the recovered body and Sara Lily could not be relied upon due to the possibility of contamination and that the DNA sample used was in fact degraded.

However, Nazran said the other five questions pertaining to the exact time, location, cause and manner of Francis' death remain unanswered.

"The facts are clear that the deceased jumped into ... Sungai Klang. However, where the exact location on which the deceased met his death cannot be positively determined," he added.

The particular time and date of which the deceased died can only be placed between April 16 and May 23, he said.

Due to the advanced decomposition of the recovered body, he said, "the court is reluctant to make any assumption as to how the deceased died." This, he added, remains "unascertained".

"The deceased could have possibly died due to drowning but inquests should not be made on assumptions," he noted

On the question of whether there was any criminal element involved, Nazran said as earlier testimonies confirmed that "there were no external injuries or any visible bruises" and the toxicology test found the absence of poisons, the court answers in the negative.

Citing a high court judgment in another case, Nazran said inquests should "not to go into a guessing game" and base its decision and findings upon assumptions."

"With this in mind, the court declares its findings in the inquest proceeding as an open verdict," he added.

While the family welcomed the decision that the body was that of Francis, they however disagreed with the court for ruling out criminal elements pertaining to his death.