Kota Kinabalu: Three independent experts were present in court, Wednesday, to examine documents related to the case involving Zara Qairina Mahathir.
Counsel Mohd Syarulnizam Mohd Salleh, one of the counsel representing Zara’s mother Noraidah Lamat, said the experts, Tay Eue Kam, Dr Dzulkiflee Ismail and Dr Wan Nur Syuhaila Mat Desa, were all from the peninsula.
“They will examine documents such as diaries, exercise books and loose pages.
“The experts will be conducting a wide range of forensic document tests, including handwriting and signature verification, ink and pen analysis to detect different inks or writing instruments, UV/IR light and ESDA examination to identify erased or hidden writings, writing pressure and sequence analysis to determine order of entries, FTIR spectroscopy and chemometric analysis to study chemical properties of paper and ink and authenticity and tampering detection to check for alterations, insertions, or layered writings.
“What we want to achieve with these document examiners is to review more aspects of the documents marked in court as evidence.
“Last week, it was Dr Linthini Gannetion, who specialised in handwriting analysis and examining writings on marked papers and notebooks.
“For this week, the focus is on overall documents, including ink analysis, pens used and whether there are signs of alterations, additions, or erasures,” said Syarulnizam.
Eue Kam is a document examiner with over 10 years of experience, while Dr Dzulkiflee and Dr Wan Nur Syuhaila are senior lecturers and researchers with the Forensic Science Programme at Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM).
According to Syarulnizam, Zara’s handwriting style was fairly common among children transitioning into teenager. Therefore, her writing samples from previous years will also be reviewed.
“It’s called copy printing in which primary school children write in capital rounded letters.
“This requires careful analysis to determine whether the handwriting is the same or not. We cannot simply rely on the evidence already tendered.
“Our team also bought several replica copies of the ‘Love and Peace’ notebook which was believed to belong to Zara and marked as exhibits.
“We were informed that some pages from the notebook had been torn out and tendered as evidence.
“We also want to check if there are other missing or added pages. That is one of our objectives to cover more aspects,” he said.
Mohd Syarulnizam further said there was a possibility that the books had been tampered with, as the books were previously stored in places which were easily accessible to others, including schoolmates.
The inquest is ongoing with the child deponents continue their testimony in camera.
