A child witness in the Zara Qairina inquest only shared her account months later due to trauma, her mother told the Coroner’s Court, revealing new details of the night.
KOTA KINABALU: The mother of a child witness testified that her daughter only shared her account of the incident involving Form One student Zara Qairina Mahathir after nearly three months due to trauma.
The 41-year-old woman, the 66th witness in the inquest, said her daughter provided further details in September and October last year. She later confirmed with a teacher, Ustazah Shukriah Fauzi, that her daughter had been interviewed about the incident.
“My daughter told me why she felt traumatised. When I asked why she only spoke up now, she said she was afraid,” she told lawyer Nurul Rafeeqa Afdul Mutolip. She described her daughter as emotional, distressed, and sobbing when they met on July 16, 2025.
The child witness had promised to meet a friend at Block A of the Rabiatul Adawiyah hostel after prep the night before the incident but fell asleep. She recalled waking around 1 am to go to the hostel block to meet her friend.
On her way back to her room in Block B, she saw a female student on the third floor of Block A. The witness went up, tapped the student on the back, and realised it was Zara Qairina.
She held Zara by the hand and led her into a room before returning to her own room in Block B Sumaiyyah to sleep. The mother said her daughter was questioned by a female police officer during a group meeting at school.
Her daughter told the officer everything, but the officer raised her voice and asked, “Why did you go to Block A at that time?” which made her daughter cry. A male police officer later comforted her daughter, and she shared everything with him.
The woman said her daughter became withdrawn and often trembled from the trauma after the incident. “My daughter blamed herself for not speaking to Zara, believing that if she had, the incident might not have happened,” she added.
After the disclosure, the woman contacted a school teacher to report the matter before giving her statement to the police. Lawyer Shahlan Jufri, representing Zara Qairina’s mother, said the child witness testified out of fear of being misunderstood.
Shahlan said the witness was worried about being misunderstood by the media and netizens as the last person to see Zara. Proceedings continue tomorrow.
Zara Qairina, 13, died at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital on July 17, 2025, a day after being found unconscious in a drain near her school dormitory. The Attorney General’s Chambers ordered the inquest on Aug 13, 2025, following a review of the police report.
The Sun Malaysia
