ZARA Qairina Mahathir’s stepsister, who had never met the teenager, told the Coroner’s Court that she suffered emotional distress during the seven months she lived with her stepmother, due to the way she was treated and spoken to.
Malianah Mahathir, 25, said she lived with her biological father, Mahathir Mohd Hashim, and stepmother, Noraidah Lamat, for about seven months from late 2011 until June 2012.
The 81st deponent told the Coroner that her stepmother often used harsh and insulting words towards her biological mother, which she said caused her emotional distress.
“Throughout that period, I was unhappy and suffered emotional distress because of her behaviour and words.
“I was still a primary school pupil at the time, but I was treated that way. I could not take it anymore and asked my father to send me back to my biological mother,” she said, adding that she never met Zara because Noraidah did not allow her to see her sister.
Malianah was reading her witness statement before Coroner Amir Shah Amir Hassan on Tuesday.
She further said she first came to know of Noraidah in 2011, when her father told her that he was going to marry her.
“My father told me that my stepmother had never been married, but she was willing to accept us as her children and wanted to take care of us,” she said.
She recalled that her stepmother treated her well when her father was at home, including helping with her needs and schoolwork.
However, she claimed the treatment changed whenever her father was away for work for several days.
“Throughout the time I lived with my stepmother, she was good at pretending. When my father was at home, she would be nice to me.
“But when my father went to work as a driver at Sabah Oil & Gas Kimanis, she would change and did not like me,” she said.
Malianah said that when her father was away, she had to cook for herself, wash her own clothes, including her school uniform, and prepare her own things for school.
Malianah also claimed that when her father was at home, she slept in the living room on a thin mattress.
But when her father was away for work, she said her stepmother made her sleep in the kitchen facing the toilet, even though there was another empty bedroom in the house.
She eventually left the house and later lived with her biological mother in Kampung Binunuk, Beaufort.
Malianah said Zara was born in 2013, after she was no longer living with her father and stepmother.
Malianah said the last time she had contact with her stepmother was through Facebook in 2019, when she asked about her father’s whereabouts. Her stepmother then gave her his telephone number.
She said that, as far as she knew, her father and stepmother were still married, although she was unsure about their current relationship.
Malianah is the eldest of three siblings from Mahathir’s marriage to her biological mother.
After her parents divorced in 2010, her father married Noraidah in 2011, and Zara was born from that marriage.
