A three-member bench chaired by Chief Justice Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat said the trial judge and the Court of Appeal were correct to rule that the prosecution had failed to establish a prima facie case against Zurailie Muhammad.
“The appeal is dismissed,” said Tengku Maimun, who sat with Zaleha Yusof and Harmindar Singh Dhaliwal.
Zurailie, 36, who is now working at the Gua Musang district hospital, obliged the media who wanted to take his photograph with lawyer R Nadhan.
“Please flash my picture as this will help to clear my tarnished name,” he said.
Zurailie was accused of murdering Nurul Shahira Mohamed Yatim, 29, at her house in Taman Setia Kasih in Bukit Pasir, Muar, between 2.05pm and 2.30pm on Nov 16, 2015.
Trial judge Muhammad Jamil Hussin had acquitted him without calling for his defence.
Today, deputy public prosecutor Faizah Mohd Salleh submitted that there was strong circumstantial evidence that Zurailie had committed the murder and that he ought to enter his defence.
According to the facts of the case, Nurul Shahira’s neighbour called the police when she did not come out of her house although her car engine was on.
Police found her semi-nude body with a curtain rope around her neck and blood stains on the floor of the living room.
Four days after the incident, police arrested Zurailie, who was a neighbour of the victim. He had shaved his pubic hair and there were injuries on one of his hands.
Police seized a mobile phone which the prosecution said was given to Zurailie’s friend, Sharmizi Ahmad, to settle a RM500 debt.
Police also confiscated jewellery which had been pawned by Zurailie to get RM1,000 from a goldsmith’s shop.
Nurul Shahira’s husband, Mohd Fariz Jaafar, an army personnel, had confirmed that the mobile phone and the jewellery belonged to his wife.
A pathologist’s report revealed that Nurul Shahira had died of “ligature strangulation” while DNA profiling by a chemist showed the husband’s semen in her private parts and the husband’s blood stains on the victim’s baju kurung.
During the trial, Fariz said he was a “weekend husband” and confirmed he had had sexual intercourse with the deceased a day earlier.
He said his wife sent him to a bus terminal at about 6pm on Nov 15 for him to return to his workplace.
Evidence was also produced in court showing text message exchanges between the couple on the day of the incident .
Nadhan submitted today that it was the husband who had committed the murder as DNA profiling showed his semen and blood on the victim’s clothes.
“The circumstantial evidence does not point to my client having committed the crime,” he said.