Witness: Cradle Fund CEO's room 'reconstructed' after petrol traces found

A witness in the murder trial of Cradle Fund chief executive officer (CEO) Nazrin Hassan (above) told the High Court that he was instructed to reconstruct the crime scene after the Selangor Fire and Rescue Department investigation laboratory found traces of petrol on samples sent for analysis.

Selangor Fire Department’s fire investigations officer and 15th witness, Abdul Halim Zulkefeli, said from the analysis, the Blackberry handphone found on the mattress and another Huawei handphone found at bottom of the left bedpost were found to be in good condition.

“The observations and inspections by Fire Investigations Division deputy director Edwin Galan Teruki revealed that the Blackberry was not shattered or curved. This shows that there was no evidence of an explosion on the handphone, and an X-ray done on the handphone also showed that its structure was in good condition.

“My inspection on the Huawei handphone also found it to be in good condition and there were no signs of an explosion,” he said when replying to questions by Selangor prosecution director Salim Soib@Hamid before Justice Ab Karim Ab Rahman in the court yesterday.

Abdul Halim said as a result of the findings, he was asked to reconstruct the room where the incident occurred.

“On Sept 19, 2018, together with police officer ASP Mohd Nizam, I went to the scene of the incident to ‘reconstruct’ the scene so as to identify the cause of the fire and how it started.

“Through this reconstruction process, I found that the fire was caused by an act of arson as the traces from the fire showed that it was triggered intentionally, this taking into account evidence of ‘multiple fires’ found on the right side of the mattress, both sides of the bed and the victim’s head. No traces of explosion were found on both the handphones found at the scene of the incident.

“There were traces of petrol on the victim’s head and the bed headboard, and there were also injuries on the victim’s face and left shoulder, and also a hole in his head,” he said.

On March 12, Samirah, 44, a former senior executive at the Intellectual Property Corporation of Malaysia (MyIPO), and two teenagers, aged 17 and 14, were charged, along with Indonesian citizen, Eka Wahyu Lestari, who is still at large, with Nazrin’s murder.

They are alleged to have committed the offence at a house in Mutiara Homes, Mutiara Damansara, between 11.30pm on June 13, 2018, and 4am on June 14, 2018.

They are charged under Section 302 of the Penal Code, read together with Section 34 of the same Act.

The trial continues.

- Bernama