Tracing the cause: Ram (second from right) and his team used a mannequin to recreate and identify the injuries Zara Qairina sustained from her fall at the school hostel in Papar.
KOTA KINABALU: It is for the Coroner’s Court to decide whether 13-year-old Zara Qairina Mahathir leapt from her school dormitory balcony on her own accord, forensic pathologist Dr Jessie Hiu told the inquest into the teenager’s death.
“That is for the court to decide,” said Dr Hiu when questioned by counsel Datuk Ram Singh, who pressed her on whether Zara Qairina might have jumped from the third floor of her Papar hostel.
Testifying over two days before Coroner Amir Shah Amir Hassan, Dr Hiu said her findings ruled out both an accidental fall and a push, as the hostel railing was too high to have allowed either.
“If she had been pushed, the railing would have prevented her from falling,” she said.
Instead, Dr Hiu concluded that Zara Qairina had likely “jumped or swung herself” over the barrier while holding onto the iron grille above the dormitory corridor wall.
Ram pressed further, asking whether the term “suicide” could be applied in such a situation.
“Same, it is for the court to decide,” Dr Hiu replied.
Her opinion was based on a site visit and reconstruction conducted on Aug 2, as well as the injuries sustained.
She said the multiple injuries indicated that Zara Qairina had landed on her feet before collapsing backwards.
When asked by deputy public prosecutor Datuk Badius Zaman Ahmad, Dr Hiu confirmed there was no forensic evidence to suggest Zara Qairina had been attacked.
She also dismissed as “impossible” a widely circulated social media claim that the teenager had been placed in a domestic washing machine before she was killed.
“I didn’t check the size of the drum. I was informed the deceased weighed 53kg, and I don’t think the machine could even operate with a 53kg load in the first place,” she said in response to a question from Badius.
Zara Qairina, a Form One student, was found unconscious in a drain near the hostel at about 4am on July 16 and was pronounced dead at Queen Elizabeth Hospital the following day.
The inquest will resume on Monday.
