PUTRAJAYA: Samirah Muzaffar and two teenagers remain free of a charge in the high-profile murder case involving former Cradle Fund chief executive officer Nazrin Hassan.
The Court of Appeal's three-member bench led by Judge Datuk Vazeer Alam Mydin Meera unanimously dismissed the prosecution's appeal against the trio's acquittal today.
The two other judges on the panels are Datuk Ahmad Zaidi Ibrahim and Datuk Azhahari Kamal Ramli.
Vazeer Alam, when reading the broad judgement, said the prosecution failed to prove a prima facie case against the respondents.
"The lower court (High Court) was correct in its finding that the failure to determine the time of death of the victim (Nazrin) renders the last seen theory inapplicable.
"Furthermore, we did not find any motive for Nazrin's murder, and the prosecution failed to present any evidence of the respondents' motive for killing the victim.
"The allegation of financial motive is unfounded. The victim's intention to divorce Samirah and the unclear and ambiguous relationship between the two teenagers are baseless," he said.
Vazeer Alam said Nazrin and Samirah had a good and loving relationship, as evidenced by the testimony of several prosecution witnesses.
"A few days before Nazrin's death, the messages exchanged between the husband and wife appeared normal and indicated an intimate relationship between them," he added.
On June 21, 2022, the Shah Alam High Court freed Samirah, 49, and two teenagers, who are now 22 and 19, of murdering Nazrin after finding that the prosecution had failed to establish a prima facie case against the trio at the end of its case.
Judge Datuk Ab Karim Ab Rahman in his ruling said there was no direct evidence to show the trio had committed the offence under Section 302 of the Penal Code which carries the death sentence.
"The prosecution implied that insurance money was behind it, but at the same time, they also admitted that the motive in this case was unclear," he said.
Karim said the prosecution had also merely assumed the accused were with Nazrin when he died.
The three of them and an Indonesian woman, Eka Wahyu Lestari, who is still at large, were charged with killing Nazrin, 45, at his house in Mutiara Damansara between 11.30pm on June 13, 2018, and 4am the following day.
Nazrin's murder trial started on Sept 6, 2019, and concluded on April 22, 2022, after the prosecution called 57 witnesses to testify.