Beyond DVI: Future Identification, Research and Archiving

Abstract

In the context of mass fatality incident, it is of utmost importance to identify the victims rapidly and accurately, both for judicial reasons and to provide closure for family members. DVI teams work in an interdisciplinary manner, engaging the services of experts in various disciplines, comprising of pathologists, anthropologists, odontologists, radiologists, fingerprint and DNA experts to work collaboratively towards the identification of victims. The DVI process is accomplished with four phases namely, scene, post-mortem, antemortem and reconciliation, adopting the fundamental principle where the highest possible quality standards should be applied and victims are to be treated with dignity and respect, in accordance to the internationally recognized INTERPOL DVI guide. This DVI guide has extensively adopted and used by many countries in numerous disasters with successful identification for victims. Nevertheless, the problem to positively identify victims lies with the case of insufficient or missing of the antemortem data. This paper focuses on the dynamic and continuous evolution, particularly the application of the DVI process in setting up a procedure for temporary controlled burial for all the unidentified remains in the two cases of Malaysia mass fatality incidents. It highlights the importance of temporary controlled burial for all the unidentified remains as means of forensic humanitarian reason as well as for criminal investigation where the extended version of the DVI protocol to include temporary controlled burial as a measure to treat victims with respect and dignity. The two cases convey the importance of expanding the DVI process to include procedures for future identification and archiving. DVI procedures are dynamic and have evolved as well as developed particularly in its application going beyond merely identification, to recording and documenting for future referencing by the victim's family to researchers.