Petaling Jaya district police chief Nik Ezanee Mohd Faisal said the investigator attended the post-mortem, done at the Tuanku Ja’afar Hospital here, following a request from Nora Anne’s family.
“The family requested an investigator from abroad to be present … so I requested for clearance from the then deputy inspector-general of police Mazlan Mansor and he agreed.
“We have nothing to hide and it (the post-mortem) went on for nine hours. (Among) those present during the post-mortem was Laurent Collomb, an investigator from the France National Police,” said the 45th witness in the inquest proceedings to determine the cause of Nora Anne’s death.
Today is the 22nd day of the inquest before coroner Maimoonah Aid.
Nik Ezanee, who acted as the liaison officer for the teenager’s family during the incident, said he was also informed by the foreign investigator of his observation on the post-mortem after the process was completed at about 9pm on Aug 14.
“When Collomb came out of the post-mortem room, he said, ‘wow … there is no doubt in my mind that the pathologist has performed (the autopsy) in the most professional way’,” he said, adding that he also received a message of appreciation from the French ambassador to Malaysia Frederic Laplanche.
He also told the court that apart from two investigators from France, there were three other investigators, from Ireland and Britain, who came to assist in the investigations into the case.
Earlier, the 44th witness, deputy superintendent of police C Tharmalingam from the Crime Scene Investigation Unit of Bukit Aman, said there were stains, believed to be blood, obtained during an inspection of a toilet at Sora House, where the teenager and her family stayed upon arriving in Malaysia.
“When my team and I inspected the Sora House, we did not find any visible traces of blood. Only when we used luminol spray did we detect the presence of blood on the ground,” he said when reading out his witness statement.
Asked by deputy public prosecutor Nuralis Mat, who is the inquest handling officer, what luminol is, the witness said luminol is a chemical liquid used in forensics to find traces of blood that are invisible to the naked eye.
“When sprayed on the surface, if there is blood, it will react and turn blue … this examination can only be done in the dark,” he said.
Nora Anne, 15, was found missing on Aug 4, 2019 a day after she and her family arrived in Malaysia for a two-week vacation at a resort near here, about 60km south of Kuala Lumpur.
On Aug 13, her body was found near a creek in a ravine located about 2.5km from the resort where she and her family stayed, following a massive search.
The preliminary post-mortem report stated that there was no criminal element in the death of the teenager with disabilities, and she was confirmed to have died from gastrointestinal bleeding due to prolonged hunger and stress.
The inquest continues tomorrow.