NORAIDAH Lamat told the Coroner’s Court that whatever words her daughter had written on 15 sheets of paper, Zara Qairina Mahathir remained a good and cheerful child in her eyes.
She said Zara was not only her daughter but also like a friend to her, and she believed her daughter had used writing as a way to release her feelings when she was angry.
According to Noraidah, she had never seen the 15 sheets of paper linked to Zara while her daughter was alive and only learned about them when a lawyer handed them to her during a meeting at a law firm.
Noraidah said she read the contents of the 15 sheets after receiving them while answering questions from counsel Shahlan Jufri.
Shahlan: There was an expert witness who said that the 15 sheets were written by Zara. The contents also contained abusive words directed at you by Zara. My question is, had Zara ever written like this in any of her notebooks or diaries while she was alive?Noraidah: When we were living in our old house, I once saw Zara writing something after I reprimanded her. She wrote it on another piece of paper, not like these. It was only a small piece of paper. She wrote, “Mama is bad.”She said she reprimanded Zara after reading the words and told her to throw the paper away.
Noraidah said Zara had written the words after she was reprimanded for using her handphone too much and for too long.
Shahlan: As Zara’s mother, who raised and took care of her, and after reading the 15 sheets of paper, did you believe or suspect that Zara would write like that, particularly the parts where she used abusive words against you?Noraidah: I knew Zara. If I reprimanded her, she would only keep quiet and sulk while writing. But it would not last long. After about 30 minutes, she would come back to me and say, “Mum, shall we go for a walk?”“So whatever she wrote in the book, for me, when I saw that after I got angry with her, she was still close to me, still good to me and still showed me TikTok videos, I felt that she was only releasing her feelings when I was angry with her.”Asked whether she believed Zara had written the abusive words against her in the 15 sheets, Noraidah said she did not.
“I did not believe it. Because if my daughter wanted to get angry, she would not get angry like this. It was not her character. Her character was cheerful. I would have just scolded her and she would already be fine with me. We would be as usual.
“Zara was not only my child, but also like a friend to me. So whatever she wrote, no matter how bad the words were, to me Zara remained a good and cheerful child,” she said.
