SHAH ALAM: The murder trial of Cradle Fund chief executive officer Nazrin Hassan will begin this Friday at 9am in the High Court here, with the prosecution expected to call about 60 witnesses to the stand.
Judge Datuk Ab Karim Ab Rahman said the trial dates had been fixed by the court after an agreement had been reached between both the prosecution and the defence to conduct proceedings between Friday and Dec 31.
Prior to this, the court had fixed Sept 3 (yesterday) for the start of the trial but the defence had requested an adjournment on account of being involved in another trial concerning state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) involving former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak.
During the case mention today, Ab Karim denied a request from deputy public prosecutor Wan Shahida Wan Omar to postpone Friday's trial because lead prosecutor Datuk Salim Soib@Hamid is in recovery following treatment at the National Heart Institute (IJN) last week.
Ab Karim urged the prosecution to arrange for another prosecutor to take over in the interest of concluding the trial urgently.
The accused in Friday's high profile trial comprise the victim's wife Samirah Muzaffar, 44, two teenage boys aged 17 and 14, as well as an Indonesian, Eka Wahyu Lestari, who is still at large - all four were charged on March 12 with murdering Nazrin, 47, at a home in the Mutiara Homes neighbourhood between 11.30pm on June 13, 2018 and 4am on June 14, 2018.
Samirah is represented by lawyer Tan Sri Dr Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, while the two teenagers are represented by Hisyam Teh Poh Teik. -- Bernama