The hearing on the appeal against the acquittal of Chief Inspector Azilah Hadri and Corporal Sirul Azhar Umar for the murder of Mongolian national Altantuya Shaariibuu enters the second day today.
LIVE REPORTS:
3pm: Judge Arifin asks if Kamarul was saying that Sirul was framed, to which the lawyer replies in the positive.
Arifin then asks Kamarul to refer the court to the relevant parts of the defence in which this argument was made in the trial.
Kamarul agrees to do so on another day.
The court adjourns for today.
2.45pm: Kamarul argues the blood stain supposedly belonging to Altantuya and alleged to have been found on a slipper inside Sirul's vehicle is irrelevant.
He says Altantuya’s cause of death was "probably blast-related injury" and investigators did not find a single drop of blood at the crime scene.
He adds test also showed it was inconclusive if the blood belonged to Altantuya.
"So what if the blood was found... What does that connect to? The cause of death was not from gun shot or stabbing that would spill blood," he says.
However, Judge Arifin notes even though the test was inconclusive, it was still matched to Altantuya's mother.
"It establishes some connection... How come there is the slipper with blood, he (the accused) has to explain," he says.
Kamarul then says Sirul's vehicle was in possession of a police colleague between Nov 3 to 6, 2006, around the same time suspicion about Sirul arose.
The bloody slipper was then suddenly found in the vehicle on Nov 9, he says.
1.41pm: Addressing the prosecution's argument that police cannot plant evidence in Sirul's house as they did not have the keys, Kamarul says Sirul handed his house keys to ACP Mastor Mohd Ariff.
Mastor had travelled to Pakistan to arrest Sirul, who was on duty then, as part of the security detail of then prime minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.
Kamarul said Mastor then handed the keys to his officers who then went to Sirul's house.
However, Kamarul adds, when Mastor testified, he said the keys used to access Sirul's house were not the same as the ones he handed to his officers.
"He said the keys he passed were worn out, these were new.
"There was another set of keys. Where did those keys came from?" he asks.
"If police already had those keys and already went to the house and only then the jewellery was found in the house, it is unsafe evidence," he adds.
Kamarul says the prosecution had ignored the fact of the existence of another set of keys.
1.20pm: Kuldeep speaks briefly to end his submission from before the break.
Kamarul Hisham then begins his submission for Sirul, the second defendant.
Kamarul ( right ) addresses the alleged discovery of Altantuya's jewellery at Sirul's house.
He says Sirul did not lead police into his house to show where the jewellery was, deeming the whole process as being "orchestrated".
Kamarul adds Sirul was only called in to his house after police discovered the items while he was waiting outside.
"After he was called in and only then was he asked to pose for the photographs," he said.
12.35pm: The hearing resumes.
Azilah ( left ) and Sirul take their place after coming in to the courtroom through a side door.
Photographers have thus far failed to capture fresh pictures of the duo, who have been elusive outside the courtroom.
Kuldeep continues with his submission.
11.35am: Kuldeep argues that the station diary has raised a reasonable doubt on the prosecution's case.
"The position is, the station diary is sound evidence and has cast reasonable doubt. Whether admissible or not it has cast a reasonable doubt," he says.
The court adjourns for a 30-minute break.
Meanwhile, when approached for clarification on the matter of the explosive used by the Special Actions Unit, prosecution lawyer Manoj Kurup says the explosives used were pentaerythritol tetranitrate ( PETN) and Research Department explosive ( RDX).
Asked why the Court of the Appeal judgment used the word "C4", Tun Abdul Majid replies: "They (judges) didn't read the records, they read the newspapers".
11.16am: Kuldeep cites a case where a police station diary was accepted as evidence together with a lock-up register.
However, Arifin points out that they were accepted together and read as one.
"The station diary was not accepted as a standalone," the chief justice says.
11.09am: Federal Court Judge Abdull Hamid Embung notes Kuldeep was attacking the prosecution's evidence on the call logs and asks about Azilah's alibi.
Kuldeep cites Bukit Aman's station diary which showed Azilah was at the police headquarters during the time of Altantuya's murder.
To this, Chief Judge Arifin Zakaria points out that the prosecution had argued the document was hearsay.
"We agree it's relevant but admissibility is an issue," he says
However, Kuldeep cites previous cases, arguing that it is public record and admissible as evidence under certain circumstances.
10.21am: Kuldeep says the call log used to identify Azilah's position was not in its original form and was extracted and re-organised by a telco executive from actual raw data.
"What is more important was the technical mistakes and scripting mistakes in extracting the data," he says.
He adds expert testimony had also conceded that mistakes could have been made during this extraction.
10.05am: The prosecution concludes its submission.
Kuldeep, who is representing Azilah, takes over.
Kuldeep says the High Court failed to consider Azilah's alibi.
"The High Court never decided on the alibi issue, whether he (Azilah) was at the crime scene or not," he says.
This, Kuldeep adds, is a serious flaw in the case.
9.56am: Tun Abdul Majid ( right ) further submits if there was any misdirection by the Shah Alam High Court for convicting the two accused, it still did not cause a substantial miscarriage of justice.
"If you go back to the reports, there is sufficient evidence (for conviction)," he says.
9.52am: Tun Abdul Majid says Najib's aide de camp Musa Safri was not called as a witness because his role was merely to introduce Abdul Razak to police personnel to look after the safety of the former’s home.
He adds the prosecution had also offered Musa as a witness for the defence but this was not taken up.
9.42am: Tun Abdul Majid blames the press for calling the explosive used to blow up Altantuya as "C4".
"We have never said it was C4, it was by the newspapers, it is not C4," he says.
He added the Special Actions Unit never used C4 explosives but the accused could have taken other forms of leftover explosive from their training.
He added the Court of Appeal had failed to appreciate Altantuya was killed by "blast-related" injuries.
9.29am: Azilah and Sirul take their place in court, both are clad in black jackets. However Sirul is sporting a songkok.
They appear serious and display little emotion as Tun Abdul Majid continues with his submission from yesterday.
9.23am: The appeal hearing at the Federal Court against Chief Inspector Azilah Hadri's and Corporal Sirul Azhar Umar's acquittal for the murder of Mongolian national Altantuya Shaariibuu continues today.
The duo were acquitted on Aug 13 last year after the Court of Appeal overturned their conviction by the Shah Alam High Court, citing several misdirections committed by the trial judge.
Among the misdirections cited were the failure of the prosecution to call Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak's aide de camp DSP Musa Safri.
The two Special Actions Unit officers were accused of murdering Altantuya, who had been harassing Abdul Razak Baginda, a close associate of Najib.
She was allegedly murdered between 10pm on Oct 19, 2006 and 1am Oct 20, 2006 at a jungle clearing at Puncak Alam, Selangor.
Abdul Razak was also charged for abetting the murder but was acquitted by the Shah Alam High Court and the prosecution did not appeal.
The appeal hearing which began yesterday is slated to go on until tomorrow.
Yesterday, the prosecution addressed some of these misdirections, including Bukit's Aman station diary on the duo's whereabouts, the bloody slipper found in Sirul's vehicle and phone records on Azilah's location on the night of the murder.
The prosecution is being led by deputy solicitor-general II Tun Abdul Majid Tun Hamzah.
Azilah is represented by lawyers Hazman Ahmad, J Kuldeep Kumar while Sirul is represented by Kamarul Hisham Kamaruddin, Hasnal Rezua Merican and Ahmad Zaidi Zainol.
The appeal is beinf heard before a five-member panel led by Chief Justice Arifin Zakaria.
The other judges are Chief Judge of Sabah and Sarawak Richard Malanjum and Federal Court judges Abdull Hamid Embung, Suriyadi Halim Omar and Ahmad Maarop.
