Disability did not stem the resolve of the 'Tiger of Jelutong', Karpal Singh
Campaigner argued some of Malaysia's highest-profile legal cases
A road accident in 2005 left Karpal Singh using a wheelchair and with neuromotor problems in his right arm.
But the "fearless tiger" of Malaysian politics and the law kept up his four-decade campaign for human rights. He took up some of the country's most high-profile court cases, from opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim's sodomy trial to those of drug traffickers facing the death sentence.
Media reports said Singh was headed to a court hearing in northern Penang state yesterday when he was killed in a car crash. He was 73.
"A good lawyer dies in the saddle. The same applies equally to a politician. They should work to the last," Singh said last year. Just last month he was found guilty of sedition and fined for publicly questioning the decision of an influential state ruler to remove a minister. He was appealing that decision, which could have seen him suspended from parliament.
A good lawyer dies in the saddle. The same applies equally to a politician. They should work to the last
His physical disability did not stop him from taking on controversial legal cases, including representing a Mongolian interpreter's family who sued the government in 2007 over claims she was murdered by Malaysian police.
The then prime minister, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, pledged there would be no cover-up in the case. (An analyst accused of abetting the murder had worked for then deputy premier, now premier Najib Razak.)