NEGRI Sembilan police today reiterated there was no criminal element in the disappearance of Nora Anne Quoirin, despite recent claims from her parents.

The 15-year-old went missing from the Dusun Resort, located in Jelebu near Seremban, on August 4, a day after checking in for a holiday with her London-based family. 

Nora’s body was discovered after a 10-day hunt through dense rainforest, in a ravine about 2.5km from the resort where she had been staying. 

“There was no criminal element found, as concluded by our investigation and based on the autopsy conducted by pathologists at the Seremban Hospital,” said state deputy police chief SAC Che Zakaria Othman when contacted.

Che Zakaria told The Malaysian Insight he was unsure how the parents of the Irish-Franco teenager came to their conclusion of there being criminal element in the case. 

He affirmed that his officers were well aware of Nora’s condition. 

“We knew she was special and had special needs,” he said. 

In an interview with Irish broadcaster RTE, Meabh and Sebastian Quoirin believed there was a “criminal element” to their daughter’s disappearance, which police classified as a missing persons case.

They said that Nora, who had learning difficulties, would not have been able to wander that far in the rainforest and they believed Malaysian authorities did not understand the fact that Nora had special needs. 

“For us something very complex happened. We have insisted from the beginning that we believe there was a criminal element to what happened,” they said in the interview. 

The results of an autopsy found Nora likely starved and died of internal bleeding after about a week in the jungle, police had said in August, adding there was no indication she was abducted or sexually assaulted. 

Her body was discovered by a group of hikers who volunteered to help in the search and rescue mission. 

Hundreds of people including elite police commandos, helicopters and sniffer dogs joined the huge search for the schoolgirl. 

It was also said that shamans and religious teachers were called in to help rescuers to locate the girl.

Meanwhile, state police chief Mohamad Mat Yusop said cops have yet to receive the complete post-mortem report on the teen.

He told Bernama that the report is expected to be ready soon, and that police are also awaiting other reports from the Chemistry Department.

“Investigations are still based on missing persons and sudden death.” – December 18, 2019.