KOTA KINABALU: A teacher of SMKA Tun Datu Mustapha told the Coroner’s Court she did not intend to shame by reading and sharing the contents inside diaries believed belonged to Zara Qairina Mahathir.
Answering questions from Coroner Amir Shah Amir Hassan on Friday, Yuslina Badrum said her action was only to help the investigation.
Coroner: The four parties you shared it with are not authorities, correct?
Yuslina: I felt that the administrators were the ones who should know and be responsible for the information we had.
Coroner: Correct. But they only needed to know about the existence of the diary, not its contents. Isn’t that right?
Yuslina: Yes.
Coroner: When you were tidying up and before sharing the diary’s contents, did you read it?
Yuslina: Yes.
Coroner: Can you tell the court your general perception of all the diary contents?
Yuslina: Generally? Each book has its own main points, I think. But overall, Zara seemed to be someone who rather enjoyed life. For example, she valued friendship.
She had two close friends, as far as I know. She wanted to change for the better by following the example of a Badar prefect, and she really admired this student. And from my reading, she also had some negative sides.
Coroner: Meaning, everything written was personal matters?
Yuslina: Personal matters.
Coroner: Lastly, if your personal belongings were shared in this manner, how would you feel?
Yuslina: I would certainly not like it if my personal belongings were disturbed. But in this case, we needed to look at everything from all angles to find the best solution.
According to Yuslina, she had scanned all the content of the diaries namely the purple, green, brown colours as well as the 15 loose pages.
She told the coroner that all the content of diaries and books were handed to Cikgu Norasimah and Warden Chief Ustaz Azhari in PDF photo as well as to principal and PK HEM.
Meanwhile, Yuslina disagreed with counsel Rizwandean M Borhan that the teachers at the school had a mindset of concluding that Zara was a problematic student.
She stated that not all teachers knew about the contents of Zara’s diary and not all the teachers involved had discussed the matter together.
Yuslina also disagreed that the school was trying to avoid liability and put blame on Zara on this case by not sharing the diary contents with Zara’s mother.
She agreed with Rizwandean that several pages of Zara’s diary had been leaked on social media such as TikTok, which only showed the negative content.
She disagreed that someone from the school had leaked Zara’s diary to respond to the netizens’ speculations on social media adding that she did not know who owns the TikTok account @PlotTwistZara.
