Murder trial adjourned over need for mannequin

KOTA KINABALU: The High Court here put off the defence murder trial of a police inspector after the prosecution opined that it was prudent to have a female mannequin to explain injuries sustained by the victim, a single mother, seven years ago.

Justice Datuk Nurchaya Hj Arshad adjourned the trial of Ahmad Rizal Umar, 36, at the request of the prosecution, when the case came up for continuation of testimony by the second defence witness yesterday.

The said witness, a senior consultant forensic pathologist, Datuk Dr Bhupinder Singh A/L Jeswant Singh, 67, was supposed to demonstrate the distributions and patterns of the injuries inflicted on Ahmad Rizal with the help of a male mannequin as directed by the court.

However, deputy public prosecutor Mohd Khairuddin Hj Idris suggested that it was prudent to have one female mannequin to illustrate the injuries sustained by the deceased.

The prosecution requested for a pre-trial case management for the trial to have two prosecution witnesses, who are the two doctors who conducted the postmortem and attended to Ahmad Rizal and the deceased to look for any relevant equipment needed for that matter.

The court then fixed January 6, 2019 for the pre-trial case management while the trial will resume on January 28 - 30, 2019.

Ahmad Rizal, who was the first defence witness, had opted to give sworn evidence from the witness dock, after the Federal Court here ordered him to enter his defence on the charge of killing a food catering operator Kartini Borhan, 27, at a rented house at Taman Adika in Keningau, between 4am and 5am on September 29, 2011.

The charge was under Section 302 of the Penal Code which provides for the mandatory death sentence, upon conviction.

On March 21, the Federal Court here ordered Ahmad Rizal, who was freed from the said charge four years ago, to enter his defence at the High Court here.

The justices unanimously allowed the prosecution’s appeal against Ahmad Rizal’s acquittal after the court held that the High Court and the Court of Appeal had erred for falling to call Ahmad Rizal to enter his defence.

The judges further held that the lower courts attached too much weight on break in chain of evidence but failed to take into account adequately the cumulative affairs of the circumstantial evidence namely:

1) Ahmad Rizal had allegedly lodged a false police report as found by the trial judge,

2) There was no sign of break-in at the deceased’s house,

3) Ahmad Rizal was the last person at the crime scene,

4) Photofit as provided by Ahmad Rizal was allegedly a fabricated,

5) Injuries on Ahmad Rizal were not cooperative, 6) Motive of Ahmad Rizal. On July 22, 2014, the High Court here had freed Ahmad Rizal from the said charge without calling for his defence as the judge ruled that the prosecution had failed to establish a prima facie case against Ahmad Rizal.

The prosecution then appealed to the Court of Appeal, which on January 26, 2016, Ahmad Rizal’s acquittal for committing the alleged murder was affirmed.

Deputy public prosecutor Wan Farra Farizza Wan Ghazali assisted Khairuddin while counsels Ram Singh, Rizwandean Bukhari M. Borhan, Timothy Daut, Aaron Mah and Kimberly Ye represented Ahmad Rizal.