SEREMBAN: The Coroner’s Court here will begin an inquest on June 29 into the death of a 15-month-old toddler.
The baby was found dead at a childcare centre here on Feb 22.
Sessions Court judge Rushan Lutfi Mohamed said the court will also hear applications from the relevant parties on the number of witnesses to be called and the duration of the inquest to determine the cause of Nour Rania Asyifaa Yuseri’s death.
The proceedings, which were supposed to have started yesterday had to be deferred as the coroner was on emergency leave.
State prosecution unit head Badius Zaman Ahmad told the court that his team intends to call 10 witnesses to testify at the inquest.
“We believe lawyers keeping a watching brief for the family of the deceased will also be calling witnesses.
“We will discuss the matter with them and then inform the court on June 29 as to how many witnesses will be eventually called,” he said adding that it was up to the court to make a final decision on this.
Counsel for the deceased’s family Muhammad Amin Anuar then told the court that his team also intended to call 10 witnesses.
“However, we need to discuss this with the prosecution to avoid duplication.”
Nour Rania was found dead by her babysitter in her cloth cradle about an hour after she was left in a room at the centre.
The babysitter told police she found the deceased’s head dangling from the cradle when she went to check on her.
She then tried to resuscitate the victim but was unsuccessful.
The toddler was rushed to the Sendayan health clinic but doctors failed to revive her.
A post-mortem on Nour Rania’s remains revealed that her death was due to compression of the neck.
There were 15 children, including the deceased, all aged between six months and seven years old, at the centre when the incident happened.There were also two babysitters, aged 27 and 39 at the centre which has been operating since the end of 2019.
The centre, however, was not equipped with any CCTV system.
Nour Rania’s father, Yuseri Yusoff, later said he was not happy with the findings and asked police to probe the incident under Section 302 of the Penal Code for murder.
