By Madhuri Dey
Sep 3, (THAINDIAN NEWS) The Hong Kong government spokesman on Thursday said to media sources that the three coffins which were used to bring back the dead bodies of eight Hong Kong tourists back to their country from Philippines had been mislabeled. The authorities mentioned that the mistake was noticed when the family of one of the victims turned up at a mortuary to identify their deceased relative only to find the body of another victim. Authorities are now trying to find out where the bodies got mislabeled.

The Hong Kong Government spokesman held that the change of coffin took place at the Manila funeral parlor where the bodies of the victims were transferred from plain coffins to the bigger Caskets. Gwedolyn Pang, Secretary-general of the Philippines National Red Cross maintained in front of the media sources that the bodies were correctly labeled when they left for the funeral parlor. The Secretary General maintained that the bodies were identified in the hospitals by the family members of the victims and also by the travel agency that had brought the tourists. She held that it was only after the identification that the bodies were sent out for post-mortem care. However, Gwedolyn Pang could not provide any information on whether the coffins that carried the bodies were properly labeled.

The Philippine Justice Secretary Leila de Lima, who is leading the probe into the shameful hostage incident, however maintained that the department has not received any report on mislabeling of the coffins. She added that if something like this has happened then the department “can always verify” and treat it as a part of the ongoing investigation.