by Alex Josey
Normally, the evidence produced under oath is repeated at the trial. Sometimes it is not.
At the trial of Karthigesu, the judge ordered some of the conclusions reached by Dr Devadass, the consultant psychiatrist, after his interview with Karthigesu, to be expunged.
The preliminary inquiry began on 30 July 1979 before Magistrate Wan Adnan. Some of the 19 ‘torrid’ love letters Dr Narada Warnasurya wrote to Jean were read out in Court by the DPP, but some he declared were too vulgar. The DPP said one of the vulgar letters “beats D.H. Lawrence, author of Lady Chatterley’s Lover.” The letters revealed that the Sri Lankan doctor came to Kuala Lumpur in October 1978 and Jean spent some time with him. The doctor wrote to her after the visit:
My darling Jeanie. I can think of every little detail of your body, darling. I caressed it, kissed it, smelt it and I can remember every little gesture ... act of love on your part. When I think of them, my pet, my hunger grows.
Another letter gave details of how he would make love to her when they met again. The DPP said this letter could not be read out in Court.
Altogether, 23 love letters were produced in Court. Four of them were written by Jean to Karthigesu.
The DPP read from a letter from the doctor to Jean dated 26 September 1978:
My dearest darling Jeanie. Distance is to love as wind is to fire. It blows out the small and rekindles the great. I am just burning up like a great big bonfire. I just cannot get you off my chest, Jeanie.
Another letter read:
We will try to book into Wisma Belia as the Apollo is too expensive, darling, and you are paying the bill. I feel like a heel but I think I will sacrifice my pride as I want to see you so badly. I don’t want to reduce on the presents for my wife and family as I feel bad to do so. But as for myself, darling, I would deprive myself of anything.
“Another letter dealt with what he would do to Jean, but it could not be read out,” said the DPP. In another love letter he said of a letter Jean wrote to him:
I could see your love in every word. I could feel it vibrant and passionate in every syllable of your letters ... I would like to offer you a lifelong partnership because I would love to have you by me every night, soft, warm and lively.
In another letter dated 7 October, Dr Warnasurya referred to a telephone call he had made.
Forgive me, darling, but I feel so much like your husband that I thought for this letter I could call you that. I am sorry darling about something. So cold and polite when I spoke to you tonight but I was feeling a bit rattled after talking to your brother-in-law and I thought he was listening in. You must be sure that you want him and he wants you.
Another letter was dated 10 October.
The phone rang and they read out your cable to me. Darling I could have cried with relief and happiness, relieved to hear that everything is normal and that I have not disrupted the steady flow of your family life. I think we should plan to meet again in April in Sri Lanka or Malaysia. It would be worthwhile for two weeks if we do not rush it. The whole of last night I relived the details of our lively honeymoon. About your brother-in-law, how are things? I feel the green-eyed monster raising its tiny head though he has no right to in my case. Just ignore it.
The DPP read out extracts from another letter dated 11 October:
I will have you in my heart for the rest of my life. If ever circumstances prevent us from getting together, even in 15 years I will want to do so. You might not be keen on an old man of 49, but then you at 45 would still be a darling bride to me ... My darling Jeanie, I can think of every little detail of your body ... when I think of them, my pet, my hunger grows. Your visit to Sri Lanka in December 1978/April 79 is more realistic, but if both of us feel the hunger to be unbearable let us risk it in December.
During the preliminary inquiry the Court was told that the Malaysian police, acting through Interpol, made attempts to get Dr Narada Warnasurya to come to Kuala Lumpur at the expense of the Malaysian Government to give evidence. The doctor refused to make any statement or answer any questionnaire, or to come to Kuala Lumpur to give evidence for the prosecution.
Defence counsel Mr Ponnudurai, asked Jean’s brother, Brian Perera to read out a letter dated 18 June 1978 from Jean to Karthigesu. It said:
My darling Athan (a Tamil endearment),
I refer to you in this manner because that is what you are to me. I am convinced that you are nothing else but my husband after our trip to see the house in Damansara. When I went into the bedroom downstairs to find you and Achee there, this is what Achee told me: ‘This is my room.’ Darling, it shall be our room when we all move in there.
Though I felt alone and lost and unmotivated for a future life during our first visit there, this year, I felt quite different somehow. I felt your brother has somehow come back in you to live there like he so dearly craved. My dearest, I want so much for him to come back to us and deep within me I know he will come soon to us in that house in Damansara. As you talked to your brother-in-law about things concerning the house I did feel my husband talking, and I felt the children had a father. Imagine living in the same house, breathing the same air and eating the same food, yet the distance between you and me is so great. Oh how I envy every object, be it solid or gas that is able to grace your body and caress your lips without having to care for anything at all. I can only draw comfort for the ever-so-moments you afford me, like last Saturday for instance—the shortest and yet by far the sweetest yet painful moments together. Sweetest because you unfolded to me that you took me because you desired me, painful because of the briefness. My dearest, I know it will be a long time before you take me out again and the waiting won’t be that unbearable if you would talk to me like this at least.
Surely, my love, you can afford 10 minutes to write to me something sometime or another. I am sure after making love to me so many times and being able to read me so accurately, you must be aware of how intensely and deeply I have attached myself to someone I love and how passionately loving I can be. That is why I need your tender words, your kisses and if not these then pen me something at least.
All my kisses, tender and passionate, your wife, Jean.
Professor G. Devadass, University Hospital consultant psychiatrist, said that Karthigesu told him that four men forced him to watch while Jean was stabbed to death. He said he closed his eyes and did not look because he did not like the sight of blood. Dr Devadass who interviewed Karthigesu for an hour told the Court that Karthigesu had shown no signs of shock due either to emotional trauma or a knock on the head. “I felt Karthigesu had told me a story which was perhaps not true. He said that throughout the interview Karthigesu referred to Jean as ‘this woman’ or ‘that woman’. Karthigesu talked freely about the murder and there was no evidence of any disturbance in his thinking.”
The psychiatrist said Karthigesu told him he had stopped his car at the Subang Jaya flyover to ease himself that night but before he could get out, another car stopped alongside his. Four men got out and pulled him out. They forced him to watch while Jean was stabbed to death. The men then dragged him about 10 feet from the car and made him lie face down. They threatened that he would get the same treatment as Jean if he told the police or made any noise. Karthigesu said the man hit him with a crash helmet before they left. Professor Devadass told the Court he allowed Karthigesu to talk without interruption in order to assess the extent of his memory, whether he witnessed the so-called murder and whether he was in a state of shock. Dr Devadass said it was his opinion that Karthigesu was not suffering from an emotional shock which would cause a block in his memory. The doctor explained that when a person suffers loss of memory because of an emotional shock (if he witnessed a painful event), he normally goes into a dazed state which could last a few seconds. He said his conclusions were that Karthigesu had told him a story that perhaps was not true.
Dr Devadass asked Karthigesu if he would undergo a narco-analysis test to help the people investigating the case. This was an analysis of the
subject’s mind for memories, events and emotions past or present by injecting a drug into him. It allowed a person to talk freely without emotional blocks or without resistance about what was going on in his mind. However, Karthigesu said he did not want to undergo the test because he might say what the police wanted him to say, which was that he had killed Jean. Dr Devadass said Karthigesu told him he felt the quarrels and unpleasant things between him and ‘this woman’ would come out and he didn’t want that. Karthigesu maintained that he had told everything and there was nothing more to say. Dr Devadass said that throughout the interview Karthigesu referred to Jean only once by her name. Karthigesu lost his temper on three occasions. He was very angry and upset that the police interrogation had been very humiliating but he had managed to check his anger. He was sad and in tears when stating that he missed his family. On the third occasion he was very angry when talking about ‘that woman’. He said agrily that other men could have killed her. It need not have been him because she was ‘that kind of a woman’. He said that even when his brother was alive Jean had been ‘like that’.
Asked by the DPP if Karthigesu had said: ‘She had been an unfaithful woman for a long time to many men and so others could have had reasons to kill her’, Dr Devadass said that summed up what Karthigesu had said. Answering another question, Dr Devadass said Karthigesu did not express warm feelings towards Jean. Neither did he express sadness. Later, Dr Devadass said, “Using my total assessment, I can conclude that his story of the event is not true.”
At the preliminary inquiry on 17 Sept 1979, Mabel Perera, Jean’s mother, told the Court that she knew Jean had an interest in marrying Karthigesu at one stage. That was before Jean met Dr Warnasurya. After she met the doctor Jean was undecided. She did not want to marry Karthigesu if he insisted on having his mother, brother and sister staying with them. Mabel Perera said she told Karthigesu that Jean did not want to live with his mother. She advised Karthigesu to rent a house for Jean and live with Jean and the children, but he told her not to interfere in his affairs.
Mabel Perera was also aware that Jean, while agreeing to marry Karthigesu on certain conditions, was receiving love letters from Dr Warnasurya.
Cross-examined by Mr Ponnudurai (for Karthigesu), Mabel Perera denied that Jean was beyond control at the age of 14 and was therefore sent to a convent school in Malacca. Jean was sent to Malacca to do her Cambridge examinations at the age of 16 because there were no science classes that year in the Kajang convent. The convent school in Malacca was a boarding school.
At the request of defence counsel, Mabel Perera read out letters Jean wrote to Karthigesu on 11, 14, 18 June and 2 July 1978. The letter dated 11 June read:
Darling Selvam,
It is 10:00 pm according to your watch which is just in front of me. I look left and see the cigarette butts your lips have touched. To the right, just below is your briefcase and just beyond is the waste basket in which I can see four empty cigarette boxes besides your other rubbish. All your books, papers, shoes and everything to make me feel your presence, and yet I am feeling lonely. Selvam, the weekdays pass so soon but the weekends for me are torturesome-let me use that word please. I get pleasure in seeing you and hearing you but that is not enough for me. I feel walled away from you, unable to touch you, to feel your arms around me, holding me tight, your lips pressed so warmly against mine. Darling, don’t think me crazy, but though I have been married six years what I am going through now is no different from the same way I felt six and half years ago. Only at that time there was a different you, and yet it seems the same to me now. I saw you grind today and my heart would not allow it. Though you did it with pleasure I just could not accept it. Don’t ask me why but somehow it did not look right to me.
Another portion of the same letter read:
Please let this Saturday, the 17 come soon. I want to feel the closeness to you for much longer than the hurried few hours we have always had. I don’t want to think of barriers of time or conscience because I feel they should not be barriers to us. If being together for some time can hurt no one but only enhance our relationship then we should allow ourselves that. Darling, good night and sweet dreams. All my love most tender and pure with the most passionate of kisses.
Yours alone,
Jean.
The letter dated 14 June 1978:
Selvam darling,
I have just come into this little room here and your watch says it is 10:35 pm. I have a pile of books to mark but before I do so let me tell you what I wish I could have done this evening. There I was carrying Rohini caressing her with words of love and answering her questions about when you would come home, when you would drive home with Indran at your side. My dearest, you will live to be a very old man and a much needed old man, sweetheart. You looked so drawn and fatigued—your hair dishevelled, your face dry with driving. I wish I could have run and given you a welcome home hug. I would have brought you a hot drink, then while you sat in the lounge I would have removed your shoes and socks. Yes, I did all these things to that other you—that’s why my heart cries to think I can’t do it now, not yet. You probably would not have ventured out then that night I would have covered you with kisses and given you a massage with baby oil. You would have no choice but to respond to me, and I can just imagine how you would have made love to me. Oh, darling I miss you especially at nights when I am alone. Though the children are there it isn’t like one complete fruit. Only one half and the seeds are there. I miss the comfort of your strong arms, the contentment of knowing you are there, different from your brother and the more you say things like ‘we wore two shirts before etc etc,’ the more convinced I am that you belong to me, Dana, Rohini and Malini as well. Goodnight, sweetheart and one very long and passionate kiss goes with this.
Yours,
Jean.
P.S. Now don’t crush and throw this letter. Doesn’t one normally keep such things from one’s loved ones to read and laugh about in one’s old age?
The portion of the letter dated 2 July which was read out was:
My dearest, I know beyond any shadow of doubt that as your brother promised me I will live to die with the thali round my neck and when that day when you will make me rightfully yours come, I will once again make you promise that this time nothing is going to separate us, until age prevents it. My dearest, when you kiss me and you join me in complete union, I have felt time stand still. I can feel it is the same for you. Don’t you forget everything else for those moments ... and then when we relax don’t we feel supremely contented and at peace? Oh my darling, let me cradle your head in the intimate way as only a wife can whisper all the tender words of comfort and support that a man needs, for however strong a man is and however proud he can be there is always the moment when he needs not a father or mother, brother or sister but a wife. Let me be that woman, my sweetheart ... let me be her soon for then I promise you, your burdens if ever they appear will be lightened as I share them with you. I watched you as you washed your car and how my heart cried because I could not come to help you. I would have under different circumstances and still more my heart hurts to see you limp while working. Please, my darling, I want to see that it is attended to. That leg is precious if not to you at least to me. How many times I have kissed that foot at night while you have been sound asleep and unaware of it.
The letter was signed ‘Your very own Jean’.
A reporter went to the home of Jean’s mother, Mabel Perera, in Kajang. He asked her reactions to the statement made in Court by Jayatilake that she coached him. She said: “We deny ever having coached Jayatilake on any occasion. We hope truth prevails in the end. We are leaving the matter to the Court of law to decide.” Brian Perera, Jean’s brother, told the reporter: “I have lost my sister Jean. We don’t wish another life to be taken. As for Karthigesu we have nothing against him over what took place or transpired in the past. He has been freed by a Court of law. We abide by its decision. I am glad it is all over.”
A Reporter In
terviews Dr. Warnasurya
ON JUNE 12 1983, THE SUNDAY MAIL, a popular Malaysian newspaper front-paged the news that one of its reporters, R. Nadeswaran, had talked to Dr Narada Warnasurya. In Colombo on a short holiday, the reporter approached him. Dr Warnasurya was evasive and pleaded that he be left alone. “But I convinced him that he had to speak up to clear several innocent people whose names could have been tarnished by allegations made during the trial.” The reporter did not identify these people. What allegations?
The reporter asked: Why did Dr Warnasurya refuse to testify? After all, if he was to do justice to Jean he should have openly come to Court to tell his story. That was the reporter’s opinion. Dr Warnasurya did not share it. Said he: “There was no way in which my testimony would have helped in the trial. I had alway told myself that anything I did should benefit the dead person or her family.” Dr Warnasurya said he contacted a prominent criminal lawyer in Sri Lanka who advised him that he was not legally bound to fulfill the request made by the Malaysian police. The lawyer said it was up to him. “But he asked me to consider whether what I am going to say would help the dead person or her family. After all, my only connection with the trial was that I had an affair with the deceased. Other than that I would not have been in a situation to say anything more.”
Dr Warnasurya told the reporter that he could not answer most of the questions mentioned in the police questionnaire. Consequently he decided that “from the legal point of view, I would not be of very much help to the trial.”
From the moral point of view Dr Warnasurya said he had to consider his contribution to bring to justice those responsible for Jean’s death. He said he was aware the police had recovered the letters he had written to Jean, therefore he concluded that since the police knew the contents of the letters there was nothing more he could add.