Samirah in Cradle Fund CEO murder case
Ho Kit Yen
-May 28, 2019 3:06 PM
Samirah Muzaffar is accused of her husband’s murder in June last year. (Facebook pic)PUTRAJAYA: The Federal Court has allowed Samirah Muzaffar, the widow of Cradle Fund CEO Nazrin Hassan, bail of RM500,000 pending her murder trial in September.
The panel led by judge Azahar Mohamed said the High Court had erred in dismissing Samirah’s bail application.
“We allow her bail of RM500,000 with two sureties,” he said in delivering the unanimous ruling.
Azahar added that the possibility of Samirah tampering with potential witnesses in the trial was a vague assertion.
“The High Court did not consider that she gave her full cooperation to the police during the investigation,” he said.
Other judges on the panel were Alizatul Khair Osman Khairuddin, Ramly Ali, Abang Iskandar Abang Hashim and Zawawi Salleh.
Samirah and two teenagers are accused of murdering Nazrin on June 14, 2018, at their home in Mutiara Damansara.
Samirah was placed in detention after being charged in the Magistrate’s Court on March 4.
The court today ordered Samirah to surrender her passport pending the disposal of her case and told her to report to a police station once every two weeks.
She is also required to remain indoors between 6pm and 8am every day, and cannot leave Kuala Lumpur or Petaling Jaya without the court’s permission.
Samirah’s application for bail was initially rejected by the Shah Alam High Court, which said on April 11 that she had failed to show why she should be allowed bail for a murder charge which carries the death penalty.
Her application was also rejected by the Court of Appeal on May 10.
Her lawyer, Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, said she would be released at court tomorrow morning as her family needs time to raise the RM500,000 bail.
He added that Samirah’s case was a landmark decision on bail from the highest court in the commonwealth jurisdiction.
“This decision shows that our law has become more reasonable,” he said. “A person is presumed innocent until proven guilty.”
Referring to an earlier case in which he had represented a lawyer accused of murder, he said: “Balwant Singh was a previous landmark case, but it was only during the High Court stage.”
Shafee said the court’s decision on Samirah could set a precedent for future bail application cases.
“I will certainly send this judgment to the Commonwealth Law Association for them to include in their law reports,” he added.
Samirah’s murder trial will begin on Sept 3.
