U.S. engineer not involved in sensitive research before death in Singapore: former colleagues (3)

The court heard earlier in the coroner's inquiry that Todd had been very stressed over his work in the new research group at the institute and suffering from depression in the months before his death. His laptop also has traces of visiting depression and suicide websites.

Nevertheless, his girl friend Shirley Samiento, a Phillippino nurse at a local hospital, said she had noticed no suicide tendencies in Todd.

Todd's parents flew to Singapore for the inquiry. His mother said earlier last week after the inquiry had begun that she still does not believe his son committed suicide.

Expert witnesses who took the stand over the past several days offered explanations for some of the questions raised by Todd's parents and their lawyers, including the alleged marks on his hands and the records on a hard disk drive.

Todd's former colleagues, including Susai, Yuan Li and Wang Weizhu, on Friday also explained that an April 2012 meeting between IME and Huawei was to allow the firm to gauge the capabilities of their group. But because their group was relatively new and inexperienced then, Huawei concluded that they had not demonstrated any capabilities.

Susai said he was sure that "Shane was not involved in any highly sensitive project as he was new to GaN."

They also said that the research in their field is common among other places such as the United States, Europe, Japan as well as China's Hong Kong, which have institutes and universities that are more advanced in this field than the Institute of Microelectronics.