PUTRAJAYA: Samirah Muzaffar, the widow of the late Cradle Fund chief executive officer Nazrin Hassan, posted her RM500,000 bail in two sureties pending her murder trial.
As she exited the police lock-up area of the court after posting her bail, the 44-year-old was ushered into a black vehicle at about 12.40pm.
The former senior executive at Intellectual Property Corporation of Malaysia (MyIPO) also covered her head with a dark-coloured shawl to prevent photographers from taking her picture.
When the vehicle drove past, those inside the car gave the thumbs up to the waiting reporters, photographers and cameramen.
The Federal Court on Tuesday allowed Samirah to be released on a half a million ringgit bail with several conditions attached.
The conditions include surrendering her passport to the court and reporting to a police station once every two weeks as well as being indoors at between 6pm and 8pm.
She also cannot be at public places or public functions apart from functions involving family and religious matters.
In addition, she is not allowed to leave Kuala Lumpur or Petaling Jaya without leave of the court.
Samirah; two teenagers aged 14 and 17; 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, Mutiara Damansara, between 11.30pm on June 13, 2018, and 4am 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 upon conviction.
Samirah filed an application for bail at the Federal Court after the High Court and Court of Appeal rejected her bail application.
Her application to be released on bail pending trial was allowed because the High Court had failed to consider the provision of Section 388 (1) of the Criminal Procedure Code, which allows a woman who is facing a charge for a non-bailable offence to be released on bail pending trial.
The Federal Court has also found that there were favourable circumstances for Samirah which were not adequately considered by the High Court, including the fact that she had two young children below the age of 5 who need her care and had given full cooperation during police investigations, which was also not adequately considered by the High Court judge.
Samirah’s murder trial is fixed for Sept 3 and her counsel is Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah.
It was reported an Order To Produce (OTP) had been issued for Samirah to be present at the court to post bail at 9am.
Shafee had said Samirah’s case was a landmark decision on bail from the highest court in the Commonwealth jurisdiction.
On March 27 this year, the High Court in Shah Alam had granted bail of RM50,000, in two sureties each, to the two teenage boys.