The coroner’s court in Kota Kinabalu today heard that one of the students accused of bullying Zara Qairina Mahathir transferred out of the school a few weeks after the teenager was found unconscious at the hostel in Papar, Sabah.
Utusan Malaysia reported the head warden of SMKA Tun Datu Mustapha as saying he did not know the reason for the transfer, when questioned by Shahlan Jufri, the lawyer representing Zara’s mother, Noraidah Lamat.
Azhari Abd Sagap, who was also Zara’s Arabic teacher, said one of the other students similarly accused in the children’s court no longer stayed in the same dormitory due to trauma.
The five teenage girls charged on Aug 20 with verbally abusing Zara were referred to in the ongoing inquest as students A, B, C, D and E.
Shahlan: I have been given to understand that student A has transferred out of the school.
Azhari: Yes.
Shahlan: I have been given to understand that students are currently not allowed to transfer schools. How did she transfer?
Azhari: That is not within my scope of duties.
Shahlan: When did A transfer schools?
Azhari: I’m not sure, but a few weeks after the incident.
Shahlan: Do you know the reason for the transfer?
Azhari: I don’t know.
Shahlan: Are B, C, D and E still at SMKA Tun Datu Mustapha?
Azhari: Yes.
Shahlan: I assume that B, C, D and E are still the dormitory leaders?
Azhari: D and C weren’t the dorm leaders, B and E were. But after the incident, E stopped being a leader because she said she was unable to continue living there after the incident. I am not sure whether B (is still a dorm leader).
Zara died at Queen Elizabeth Hospital on July 17 and was buried at the Tanjung Ubi Muslim cemetery in Sipitang the same day.
On Aug 8, the Attorney-General’s Chambers ordered for her remains to be exhumed for a post-mortem, before announcing an inquest into her death on Aug 13.
