Security Guard Testifies Attempts to Rouse Zara Qairina Elicited No Response

KOTA KINABALU, Sept 12 (Bernama) -- The security guard on duty on the night Zara Qairina Mahathir was found unconscious informed the Coroner's Court today that she attempted to rouse the teenager by calling her name and holding her cheeks, but there was no response. 

Linah Mansoding @ Jaliha, 65, who described the Form One student's condition at the time, said Zara Qairina was breathing laboriously, as if ‘snoring’.

The mother of four was being questioned by Shahlan Jufri, counsel for Zara's family, on the seventh day of the inquest proceedings into the teenager's death before Coroner Amir Shah Amir Hassan.

Shahlan: At the time you called for Zara, did she give any response?

Linah: She appeared to be sleeping and snoring... she was lying flat on her back, it was pitiful.

Linah further informed the court that the deceased, who was discovered lying on her back in the drain, was not wearing any shoes or a headscarf (tudung).

The sixth witness stated that the student was moved from the location she was found to the front of the hostel, to an area near the warden’s house, while awaiting the arrival of an ambulance.

“The Head Hostel Warden, Azhari Abd Sagap, along with three senior students, moved Zara Qairina. I was there with several female teachers. We waited for nearly an hour due to the ambulance’s delayed arrival,” she said.

Linah said that while transferring Zara Qairina into the ambulance, there was a lot of bleeding from the deceased’s left foot. She also observed that the bone in her leg was exposed.

The proceedings are ongoing.

Zara Qairina died on July 17 at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, where she had been admitted a day earlier after being found unconscious in a drain near her school hostel in Papar at 4 am.

On Aug 8, the Attorney General’s Chambers ordered her remains to be exhumed for a post-mortem, before announcing an inquest into her death on Aug 13.

-- BERNAMA