Kota Kinabalu: The presence of Zara Qairina Mahathir’s blood on a document did not prove that the handwriting on the page was hers, the Coroner’s Court was told.
Forensic document examiner and certified handwriting expert Dr Linthini Gannetion said DNA analysis was unrelated to determining handwriting authorship.
According to her, DNA analysis has nothing to do with authorship determination, and even if the blood belonged to Zara, it did not mean the handwriting on the document was hers.
She was responding to a question from counsel Joan Goh on whether document Y8A could be attributed to Zara because her blood was found on it.
Dr Linthini, who holds a PhD in Forensic Document Examination from Universiti Sains Malaysia, continued giving her testimony on Wednesday before Coroner Amir Shah Amir Hassan.
However, she said no conclusion could be reached on the authorship of document Y8A due to the absence of contemporaneous handwriting samples for comparison.
She also pointed to what she described as a peculiar formation of the lowercase letter “t” in the document, adding that she could not rule out elements of disguise.
Dr Linthini further testified that she could not rule out the possibility that someone else had written the page, as there was insufficient evidence from the relevant period, and she said proper forensic standards must be followed.
She explained that forensic handwriting examination requires both similarities and dissimilarities to be assessed before any conclusion can be reached.
She added that under forensic document examination standards, a finding of “no conclusion” must be made whenever there are significant limiting factors, including the absence of comparable handwriting samples.
The inquest continues.
