Seremban, Malaysia - Malaysian police
should accept an offer by French authorities to help investigate
the death of an Irish girl whose naked body was found near a
jungle stream, the family's lawyer said on Wednesday.
Autopsy results are expected later in the day, police said,
after the body of Nora Anne Quoirin, 15, was found on Tuesday,
10 days after she went missing from a rainforest resort in
Seremban, about 70 km (44 miles) south of Kuala Lumpur.
"The family expects the police to do a thorough
investigation into the incident, including criminal angles,"
their lawyer, Sankara N. Nair, told Reuters, clarifying an
earlier comment that the family "won’t press for anything" did
not mean they opposed a full inquiry.
He urged Malaysian police to accept an offer by French
Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian to help investigate the
circumstances of the death.
"It's a very good proposal," he said. "I hope police will
accept the assistance."
Nair did not elaborate.
Sankara N. Nair, a lawyer representing the family of 15-year-old London girl Nora Anne Quoirin, speaks to the media outside a hospital morgue in Seremban. Picture: Lai Seng Sin/AP
Nora's mother is from Belfast while her father is French.
The family is still at the resort, Nair said.
Police said they would answer questions on the incident
later in the day.
The family initially feared a criminal angle in the
disappearance, saying she had special needs and had never before
left her family voluntarily, a British victims' group, the Lucie
Blackman Trust, said in a statement issued on their behalf.
Meabh Quoirin, the mother of Nora Anne Quoirin, reads a statement at a news conference in Seremban, Malaysia, before the teenager's body was found. Picture: AP
An initial investigation yielded no evidence of criminal
behaviour but police would look at all possibilities, Malaysia’s
deputy police chief, Mazlan Mansor, said on Tuesday.