SOME writing in documents attributed to the late Zara Qairina Mahathir was not written by the teenager, the Coroner's Court was told today.
Forensic document examiner and handwriting expert, Dr Linthini Gannetion, 34, said the examination found that document W2 was not used exclusively as Zara's personal journal, while document W3 contained more than one handwriting pattern.
Dr Linthini said that although most of the handwriting in W2 showed characteristics consistent with Zara Qairina's handwriting, several pages also contained writing by other individuals along with Zara's writing.
“The pages in W2 that contain other individuals’ writings along with Zara’s writings are W2_PG45, W2_PG49 to W2_PG51, W2_PG58, W2_PG59, W2_PG61 and W2_PG62.
“This discovery indicates that other individuals may have had access to W2 and may have written in it,” she said while reading her witness statement.
However, she said that for several other pages in W3, she could not conclude due to the absence of known contemporary handwriting samples for the relevant period.
Dr Linthini said that the handwriting examination was carried out based on the documents submitted, including W1, W2, W3 and Y1 to Y15, as well as known handwriting samples belonging to Zara Qairina and several other individuals referred to as Writer A to Writer J.
She said that based on the samples examined, Zara Qairina's handwriting showed a clear development from 2023 to 2025, including changes in letter shapes, inclination patterns, number formation and the way certain letters were written.
According to her, the examination results also found that the handwriting on document W1 from pages W1_PG1 to W1_PG28 had significant similarities with Zara Qairina's handwriting, while most of the content in document W2 was also consistent with the victim's handwriting for the period from late April to July 2025. – June 23, 2026
