[5][6] According to his wife, his mental faculties also declined in parallel with his physical condition; he suffered emotional disturbances and short-term memory loss, and once forgot the way back to his house and had to telephone for help.
[7] Records of the Malaysian Armed Forces state that he embraced Islam on 11 October 2004 and filed an application with his superiors to be registered as such on 8 March 2005; however, his military identity card was never modified to reflect this change of religion or his reported new Muslim name of Mohammad Abdullah.
[8] Despite his conversion to Islam, Moorthy remained uncircumcised, still took part in Hindu festivals, ate pork, and drank alcohol; he appeared on television on 31 October 2005, being interviewed about his celebration of Deepavali.
Upon receipt of the ruling, the hospital released his body to the Federal Territory Islamic Affairs Department, which buried him in the Taman Ibukota Muslim Cemetery in Gombak, Selangor that afternoon.
Though under Islamic inheritance law, his elder brother, as the immediate family's only practising Muslim, had the right to claim this benefit, he agreed to sign a written undertaking giving up all his stake in it, so that Moorthy's widow and child could receive the full amount.
"[19] Anwar Ibrahim, the former deputy Prime Minister who finished serving a corruption sentence in September 2004, pointed to the Moorthy case as an example of how the government "stifl[es] non-Muslim's rights".
[3] The case also attracted attention in India, where the Vishva Hindu Parishad filed a protest with the Malaysian High Commissioner, denouncing the burial as a violation of human rights.