SHAH ALAM: The High Court here today fixed March 27 to decide on the bail application of two teenagers who were charged with murdering Cradle Fund Sdn Bhd (Cradle Fund) CEO Nazrin Jassan in June last year.
Judge Datuk Ab Karim Ab Rahman said he needs to go through the new affidavits filed on the matter.
“The court needs time to go through the affidavits for this bail application as this is an important case,” he said.
The duo, aged 14 and 17, who were charged together with the widow of Nazrin, Samirah Muzaffar, 44, a former senior executive at the Intellectual Property Corporation of Malaysia (MyIPO), pleaded not guilty on March 12.
Samirah, the two teenagers and Indonesian national Eka Wahyu Lestari, who is still at large, were charged with the murder of Nazrin, 47, at a house in Mutiara Homes, near here, between 11.30 pm on June 13, 2018, and 4 am on June 14, 2018.
The charge, under Section 302 of the Penal Code and read together with Section 34 of the same code, provides for the mandatory death sentence, if convicted.
Earlier, the lawyer representing the two teenagers, Hisyam Teh Poh Teik, in his submissions had said that the bail should be given to his clients taking into account their ages when the alleged offence was committed on June 13.
He said the court should also take into account the fact that his clients had excelled in studies and extracurricular activities.
Hisyam further said that there was no basis for the prosecution team to allege that there was a high probability of both the boys engaging in witness tampering.
“It is merely speculation,” he said.
Meanwhile, deputy public prosecutor Datuk Jamil Aripin said the court should not allow bail for the teens as murder is an unbailable offence.
He also said that allegations of sexual and physical assault against one of the boys are unfounded.
Jamil said this was because the contents of the boys’ biological father’s police report and the affidavit contradicted one another concerning the said assault.
Also present at the hearing today was wheelchair-bound political analyst and social activist Dr Chandra Muzaffar, the father of Samirah and grandfather of the boys.
The Petaling Jaya Magistrate’s Court had on Oct 1, 2018, allowed the police to exhume Nazrin’s remains for a second post-mortem to assist the police investigation into his death.
On Aug 3 last year, Nazrin’s death was reclassified as murder after an investigation by the Fire and Rescue Department found traces of petrol at the scene of the fire.
It was initially reported that Nazrin had died in a fire caused by an explosion of his mobile phone.
The second autopsy report stated that Nazrin died from head injuries and not from the cell phone explosion. - Bernama