A hospital that performed abdominal surgery on Shin Hae-chul, a famous pop singer, on Tuesday denied an autopsy result implying that medical negligence might have caused his death.
   
On Monday, the Seoul branch of the National Forensic Service announced that a 0.3-centimeter-long hole was found in his pericardium during an autopsy, which might have resulted from the abdominal surgery.
  
The 46-year-old rock singer was pronounced dead at the Asan Medical Center in southern Seoul a week ago after being transferred from another hospital identified only by its initial "S" where he received the operation on Oct. 17. He had been in a coma for five days after the surgery.
  
Shin's wife has filed a complaint with police against the S hospital to look into alleged medical negligence. The hospital has strongly denied the allegation.
  
"The hole allegedly found in Shin's pericardium has nothing to do with the abdominal operation that we performed," a lawyer for the S hospital told Yonhap News Agency by phone.
  
"We, of course, don't open the chest, where the heart is located, during an abdominal surgery and the diaphragm separates the chest (from abdomen)," the lawyer said. "We see a possibility that something went wrong at the Asan Medical Center that conducted both heart and abdominal surgeries."
   
As for food debris found inside the pericardium, he said that Shin appears to have eaten meals as soon as being discharged from the hospital, although he was not supposed to do so, deteriorating his condition.
 
Doctors of the hospital will be summoned by the police investigating the case around Saturday or Sunday, according to sources close to the investigation.
  
Police earlier revealed, citing records from the Asan hospital, that a centimeter-long hole was found in his intestine when he was transported to the general hospital.
  
But forensic experts said on Monday that they could not see the alleged hole in Shin's small intestine because the Asan hospital had already cut part of his small intestine and stitched it during the emergency operation.
   
Shin, an icon of the 1990s pop musical scene, released more than 30 studio albums and experimented with various genres ranging from modern rock to jazz and techno since his debut in 1988.
  
The singer had been actively campaigning on a wide range of social issues, including the legalization of marijuana and the scrapping of the adultery law. (Yonhap)