KOTA KINABALU: The Coroner’s Court heard that three diaries and multiple handwritten pages belonging to the late Zara Qairina Mahathir were discovered in her school locker and classroom bookshelf.
Azhari Abd Sagap, the 31-year-old head warden of SMKA Tun Datu Mustapha in Papar, testified as the eighth witness in the inquest into the 13-year-old girl’s death.
He stated that the initial discovery occurred on July 16 when Teacher Gloria informed him about two diaries found in Zara Qairina’s locker.
Azhari instructed that the green and purple diaries be handed to Teacher Yuslina for temporary safekeeping while he was at Queen Elizabeth Hospital.
The following day on July 17, Zara Qairina’s mother arrived to collect her daughter’s belongings from the hostel.
Azhari asked Teacher Miswati to help pack Zara’s belongings from her locker and place them in the hostel’s isolation room.
Miswati later discovered a brown diary and an exercise book in the same locker and was instructed to hand them to Yuslina.
Yuslina delivered all three diaries and the exercise book to Azhari on the morning of July 18.
Azhari subsequently passed all four items to investigating officer Inspector Wong Yew Zhung at approximately 5 pm that same day.
On July 19, Miswati found 15 pages of handwritten diary entries in Zara Qairina’s classroom bookshelf during an inspection.
These pages were first passed to Yuslina, who then gave them to Azhari for handover to police.
Azhari confirmed handing the 15 diary pages to Inspector Wong at 3 pm on July 19.
Under questioning from deputy public prosecutor Mohd Fairuz Johari, Azhari confirmed submitting two additional exercise books for Bahasa Melayu and Science to police upon request.
Zara Qairina died on July 17 at Queen Elizabeth Hospital and was buried the same day at Tanjung Ubi Muslim cemetery in Sipitang.
She was admitted to hospital on July 16 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 post-mortem on August 8 before announcing an inquest into her death on August 13. – Bernama