Kuala lumpur: Chemical analysis has established a strong scientific link between 15 loose pages marked Y1 to Y15 and the 'Love and Peace' journal marked WK9 examined in connection with the death of Zara Qairina Mahathir, the Coroner's Court heard today.
According to BERNAMA News Agency, the 78th witness, forensic science lecturer and researcher from Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), Dr. Dzulkiflee Ismail, stated that the analysis revealed the loose pages and WK9 shared the same chemical composition. They could be chemically distinguished from a brand-new unused journal of the same brand and type. Dr. Dzulkiflee explained that his results supported the conclusion that the paper of pages Y1 to Y15 shared the same chemical composition as the paper of journal WK9 and is chemically distinguishable from an unused journal of the same brand and type.
Dr. Dzulkiflee, who holds a PhD in Forensic Chemistry from the University of Strathclyde, United Kingdom, conducted the chemical analysis using Attenuated Total Reflectance-Fourier Transform Infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy combined with chemometric techniques. This technique allowed for the comparison of the chemical composition of the papers through distinctive infrared 'fingerprint' patterns, helping to determine whether papers originated from the same or different sources.
He further elaborated that Principal Component Analysis (PCA) showed Y1 to Y15 formed a tight cluster, indicating that the pages were chemically very similar to one another, with readings from WK9 falling within the same cluster. Additional analysis using Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) correctly classified 100 percent of the samples into their respective groups, while statistical cross-validation recorded an accuracy of 98.5 percent, with WK9 consistently grouped together with Y1 to Y15 instead of the unused control journal.
However, Dr. Dzulkiflee emphasized that his examination was limited to establishing the likely common origin of the papers based on their chemical composition and did not involve determining who wrote the entries. Zara Qairina died at Queen Elizabeth Hospital on July 17, 2025, a day after she was found unconscious in a drain near her school hostel at about 4 am. The inquest will resume on Wednesday.