A Battered Child or Electrocution?

Abstract

The dead body of a 13-year-old boy was transferred from the Department of Forensic Medicine in Al-Qadisiya Health
Directorate, Al-Qadisiya province to the main medico-legal directorate in Baghdad. Bruises were scattered all over his body with bite marks on his left shoulder and superficial wounds in different regions, in addition to a bruise similar to a ligature around the neck. There was also an electrocution burn on the right forearm. The body was transferred because of the unavailability of forensic pathologists in that region and the difficulty of performing the autopsy by other doctors in order to give a proper autopsy report to the court and whether it was a case of battered child syndrome, electrocution, or homicide through injuries the perpetrator tried to conceal. It was revealed that the boy was lectrocuted, and electrocution was recorded as the cause of death.