The Coroner’s Court and key parties conducted a second site visit at SMK Agama Tun Datu Mustapha in Papar for the inquest into Zara Qairina’s death.
PAPAR: The inquest into the death of Form One student Zara Qairina Mahathir resumed this week with the parties involved visiting the scene at Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan Agama Tun Datu Mustapha here today.
The visit was the second, following the first on Sept 11 last year.
Today’s site visit covered classrooms and the Design and Technology (RBT) room in the school building, as well as a dormitory room and toilet in the girls’ dormitory block.
Coroner Amir Shah Amir Hassan arrived at the scene for the locus in quo session at 10.05 am, accompanied by deputy public prosecutors acting as conducting officers for the inquest and lawyers representing the interested parties.
The site visit was conducted to gain a clearer understanding of earlier testimony by providing a direct visual reference to the actual conditions surrounding the incident involving Zara Qairina.
Several adult witnesses, including teachers, and several child witnesses were also present and called upon to clarify matters at the scene relating to the locations, layout and physical conditions referred to in their earlier testimony.
The parties spent about three hours inspecting the site before the session concluded at about 1.30 pm.
Zara Qairina, 13, died on July 17 last year at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, where she had been admitted a day earlier after being found unconscious near a drain at her school hostel in Papar at 4 am.
The Attorney-General’s Chambers ordered her remains exhumed for a post-mortem on Aug 8, before announcing a formal inquest into her death on Aug 13.
The proceedings will resume tomorrow.
