A CONSULTANT forensic psychiatrist his conclusion that the manner of Zara Qairina Mahathir’s death was most consistent with suicide, represented his professional opinion as an expert deponent.
The 67th deponent, Dr Chua Sze Hung said his findings also based on the materials evaluated in the psychological autopsy report.
He confirmed that his role was to assist the Coroner in the inquest, while the final determination regarding the manner of death remained within the jurisdiction of the Coroner’s Court.
During the proceedings, Dr Chua agreed that reactions of shock, denial or difficulty in accepting the possibility of suicide by family members are not unusual, particularly when the deceased appeared normal or cheerful before the incident.
He also agreed that the family’s difficulty in accepting the possibility of suicide does not in itself with the forensic or psychological findings consistent with suicide.
Dr Chua further explained that the identified predisposing factors could not be viewed separately or mathematically.
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According to him, those factors interacted with one another and, taken as a whole, formed the psychological vulnerability of Zara as an adolescent.
However, Dr Chua further explained that the predisposing factors alone were not necessarily sufficient to cause the incident to occur and in the context of this case, he said those predisposing factors must be viewed together with the direct triggering factor that occurred on the night of July 15, 2025.
He also testified that it was highly possible that Zara’s mother did not fully know how she interpreted her mother’s actions or intentions, unless the mother herself had read the deceased’s personal diary entries.
When asked if the deceased had a good relationship with her mother, she would likely have contacted her mother before the incident, in which Dr Chua explained that in adolescent cases, such actions do not necessarily occur because the behaviour of teenagers under acute stress can be impulsive and influenced by limited thinking at that particular moment.
He further explained that under acute stress, an adolescent may experience cognitive constriction, a condition in which the individual finds it difficult to see other options or alternative ways out of the situation being experienced.
Dr Chua also explained that factors such as adolescence, immature impulse control, acute stress, sleep deprivation and other psychological factors could affect a person’s decision-making ability at that point in time.
