Kuala lumpur: The Coroner's Court here today was told that copying another person's handwriting over many pages would be difficult as differences in writing habits would usually appear. Dr Linthini Gannetion, a forensic document examiner and certified handwriting expert, explained that although she would not describe such an act as impossible, it would be challenging because handwriting involves several individual features.
According to BERNAMA News Agency, Dr Linthini stated that the speed of execution, the pen pressure, and the skill level would all differ since the act of copying would be a conscious effort rather than a subconscious one. She made these remarks when questioned by counsel Joan Goh, representing one of the students accused of bullying Zara Qairina Mahathir, during the inquest proceedings before Coroner Amir Shah Amir Hassan.
When asked whether it would be very difficult to copy another person's handwriting across numerous pages, Dr Linthini affirmed that differences would likely emerge. The 74th witness, with a PhD in Forensic Document Examination from Universiti Sains Malaysia, further explained that no two writers could produce identical handwriting.
Dr Linthini noted that handwriting samples from Zara Qairina's dormmates, while seemingly similar to the untrained eye, displayed significant differences upon detailed examination. Before comparing disputed handwriting, an examiner identifies repeated and unconscious writing habits within a person's handwriting using the ACE-V method: analyse, compare, evaluate, and verify.
Dr Linthini elaborated that during the analysis stage, an intra-writer comparison is necessary to pick out repetitive characteristics present in a person's handwriting. These repeated habits must be identified before making comparisons with the questioned material.
She informed the court that she could not confirm whether all writings on the loose pages marked Y1 to Y15 belonged to Zara Qairina due to insufficient handwriting samples from the pertinent period. Yesterday, Dr Linthini testified that the documents marked Y1 to Y15 had been confirmed as pages torn from the 'Love and Peace' diary, believed to belong to Zara Qairina.
During today's proceedings, several pages were displayed on screen, showing writings on Zara Qairina's personal feelings, including matters related to her relationship with her mother. Dr Linthini emphasized that without contemporaneous documents or suitable handwriting samples from the relevant period, certain writings could not be properly compared due to the lack of comparable material.
She concluded that Y1 to Y15 originated from WK9 ('Love and Peace' diary), which contained 106 pages. However, when compared against the reference book, more pages were noted. Dr Linthini mentioned indentations on Y1 to Y15, suggesting they had been removed from WK9 and could not rule out potential tampering, citing alterations and deletions within WK9 and mixed authorship patterns in Y1 to Y15.
Zara Qairina passed away at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital on July 17, 2025, a day after being discovered unconscious in a drain near her school dormitory at around 4 am.