SHAH ALAM: A pair of slippers on which were the bloodstains of Mongolian woman Altantuya Shaariibuu took centre-stage at the murder trial yesterday.

"To whom did the slippers belong? How did it suddenly appear in accused Corporal Sirul Azhar Umar's jeep?"

These were among the questions raised by counsel Kamarul Hisham Kamaruddin in his submissions at the end of the prosecution case.

Kamarul, who is representing Sirul, said the slippers which were found in Sirul's jeep were questionable as there was a break in the chain of custody of the vehicle's keys.

He said DNA test was also never done on the slippers to identify who had used them, "thus denying Sirul an exculpatory piece of evidence".
"Before Sirul was assigned to go to Pakistan for escort duty, he had given the keys to his jeep to his colleague, Sergeant Rosli Ibrahim, to run the engine," he said at the High Court yesterday.

"The keys were then left in a tray at the Special Action Squad (UTK) Communications Department in Bukit Aman."

Rosli, said Kamarul, had run the engine twice.

"On Nov 3, 2006, however, Rosli handed the keys to DSP Mohd Khairi Khairuddin who held on to it for three days before returning it to Rosli. And it was Khairi who had access to the jeep for three days," he said.

"The purpose of Khairi's request is not known nor what he had done to the jeep."

Kamarul said the failure of the prosecution to call Khairi to testify had left a gaping hole in the chain of custody.

He said that on Nov 3 when Khairi requested for the keys, Sirul was already under suspicion and had been ordered to return to Malaysia from his duty in Pakistan.

He submitted that Rosli had testified he never saw the pair of slippers when he helped Sirul run the engine.

"Miraculously, the slippers appeared when Supt Soo Me Tong, from the forensics department, examined the jeep, after Khairi had access to the vehicle for three days," he said.

Kamarul also argued that Soo neither carried out DNA analysis on the slippers to ascertain to whom it belonged to nor attempted to lift fingerprints from the bloodstains because he could not see any print with his naked eye.

"He, however, admitted that it was possible to leave a print mark that was not visible to the naked eye," he said.

"So who could have held the slippers? We were denied this important evidence."

Investigating officer ASP Tonny Lunggan, he added, did not know Sirul's shoe size.

"He guessed it was a size 9 as the bloodstained slippers were size 9. God forbid if Sirul was a size 7. Then to whom would the bloodstained slippers belong?" he asked.

Besides the issue of the slippers, Kamarul argued that the prosecution failed to link Sirul's jeep to the crime scene and the victim.

"The soil samples taken from the vehicle did not match the soil samples taken from the crime scene," he said, adding that the victim's DNA were also never found in the vehicle.

Sirul, 36, and Chief Inspector Azilah Hadri, 31, and both UTK members, are charged with murdering Altantuya at Mukim Bukit Raja, Selangor, between 10pm on Oct 19 and 1am the following day. Abdul Razak Baginda, 47, a political analyst is charged abetting them.

Hearing before judge Datuk Mohd Zaki Md Yasin continues today.