Death inquiry linked to Huawei starts in Singapore Girlfriend of US researcher Shane Todd, Shirley Sarmiento, leaves with Todd's former neighbour Michael William Goodwin after a coroner's inquiry on the death of Todd, at the subordinate court in Singapore in May 2013. Months before Shane Todd was found hanging in his Singapore apartment the American engineer told his parents his life was being threatened in a shadowy world of high tech secrets and espionage. We believe our son was murdered. We know our son was murdered," says Mary Todd, a 57 year-old US pastor who has arrived in Singapore for a coronial inquiry that centres on claims about Huawei, the Chinese communications company likely to emerge with all or part of a $2 billion-plus contract to build an ultra-fast mobile network for Optus in Australia. According to Singapore's official version of events Shane Todd, 31, committed suicide in June last year, one week before he was due to return to the US after an 18-month stint working for a Singapore-government research centre known as the Institute of Microelectronics (IME). But the death has struck a nerve amid global tensions over alleged spying operations originating from China after the chance finding of what Mrs Todd thought was a speaker among her son's belongings days after his death. I said to my husband, 'can one of the boy's use this little speaker. Throw it in the bag,' " she says. It turned out to be a hard drive missed by investigators that contained thousands of documents Shane Todd had backed up from his work computer. Experts engaged by Mrs Todd and her husband Rick say the hard drive contained a draft of a project outline between IME and Huawei on the development of an amplifier device that utilised a material used in semiconductors called gallium nitride. The heat-resistant material has uses in products like LED screens but also has military applications in things like radar and satellite systems. Shane Todd had been trained in the US on proprietary equipment that produces the material but is restricted for export because of the potential miliary applications. Rick Todd said his son told him before his death: "I think they've asked me to compromise US security. I feel like I would be betraying my country. Both IME and Huawei have denied they were collaborating on research on the material. A Huawei spokeswoman told journalists the company "does not do military equipment or technology nor do we discuss it with partners." Singapore's foreign and law minister K. Shanmugam said in March that Mr Todd worked on a small project with Huawei for nine months but research on gallium nitride never went ahead. The circumstances of Shane Todd's death are being fiercely contested at the 12-day inquest that opened last Monday and is expected to hear from up to 60 witnesses. An original autopsy concluded that Mr Todd died by hanging before his Filipino girlfriend found his body suspended from a door in his apartment two days after he quit his job at IME. Two US-based medical examiners agreed with the findings in evidence on Monday. Police also testified that examination of Mr Todd's laptop found he had visited suicide-related websites on 19 occasions from March to June 2012, most of which were on June 23, the day before he was found dead. Police said Mr Todd had also consulted a psychiatrist over depression and stress-related issues. But an investigation into the death by two reporters commissioned by the Financial Times that was published in February brought the case to the attention of the FBI, influential US senators and US Secretary of State John Kerry who raised it with Mr Shanmugam. Mrs Todd says a suicide note was fake because it contained factually incorrect details and didn't look like her son's writing. The note thanked the Institute of Microelectronics but she says he had grown to hate the company. The Todds found signs that Shane was ready to leave Singapore with a plane ticket purchased, clothes packed and furniture tagged for sale. In the bathroom there were no signs that any ropes and pulleys police said were used in the death. "Absolutely none of it made any sense," Mrs Todd says. Fairfax Media reported on April 27 that Huawei is likely to win the contract to build a national 4G network for Optus that would expand the company's presence in Australia after it was locked out of the national broadband network for what is believed to be national security grounds. The move could reignite scrutiny around Huawei given Optus has contracts with the Department of Defence, albeit on its satellite service. Huawei has been deemed a security risk by the US Congress on the grounds its equipment could be used for spying.