The family of 15-year-old Nóra Quoirin have accused the Malaysian government of purposely stalling the investigation into her suspicious death.
The French-Irish teenager was found dead nine days after she went missing from an eco‑resort near Kuala Lumpur in August 2019. Her family believe she was abducted.
Nóra was born with holoprosencephaly – a disorder that affects brain development – and her family have said she would not have wandered off on her own.
Nóra’s parents, Meabh and Sebastien Quoirin, said in a statement: ‘In 2019, when our daughter Nóra went missing in Malaysia, in addition to the police involvement from Ireland, the UK and France, the French judiciary opened an inquiry to investigate her possible kidnapping. Over the last six years, France has led what is known as a mirror enquiry, not least as Nóra was a French citizen.
‘This involved serious effort, notably considering all aspects of Nóra’s environment and interviewing friends, neighbours and teachers to establish as much factual background as possible. Throughout, France has sought mutual legal assistance and judicial co-operation from Malaysia and, at each stage, has been refused.
‘This week, meeting with the appointed judge in the Courts of Justice, Paris, we learned that Malaysia is still refusing to share any aspects of their inquiry under the pretext that it remains open. The Attorney General in Malaysia has determined that the execution of the request at this juncture would prejudice the criminal matter in Malaysia.
Nóra Quoirin. (RollingNews.ie)
‘Once again, we are faced with a refusal to search for and deliver the truth. Preferring silence and obscuring of international justice, over the defence of an innocent child. Nonetheless, we will continue to fight for answers.’
Nora’s naked body was discovered beside a stream 1.6 miles from the resort on August 13, 2019. Police previously said there was no sign she had been abducted or raped, with a preliminary postmortem showing she succumbed to intestinal bleeding due to starvation and stress.
A coroner in Malaysia ruled in January 2021 that the death was accidental and there was no third-party involvement. Her family branded the findings ‘incomplete’ at the time.
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But in June 2021, a court in Malaysia overturned an inquest verdict of ‘misadventure’, saying it would not have been probable for the teenager to venture out on her own and navigate challenging terrain around where she was found.
Judge Azizul Azmi Adnan said Nóra’s issues ‘establish in my view that it would have been unlikely that the death was the result of misadventure’.
The case remains open in both Malaysia and France. Extra.ie contacted Malaysia’s police force for comment.
* This article was originally published on Extra.ie.
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