Murder trial: Late Cradle Fund CEO had deep wound track in the head

The murder trial of Cradle Fund chief executive officer Nazrin Hassan (above) was told that the deceased had a 6.8 cm-deep wound track in his brain which could be interpreted as an injury resulting from the use of a hammer or archery set.

Hospital Kuala Lumpur forensic medicine consultant Dr Siew Sheue Feng, 50, told the High Court in Shah Alam yesterday that the wound was listed as the first among 16 wounds and marks found on Nazrin’s body.

“The wound was 5cm by 4cm on the external and the track inside the brain was 6.8cm,” the 46th prosecution witness said during examination-in-chief by Deputy Public Prosecutor Tengku Intan Suraya Tengku Ismail.

When cross-examined by Muhammad Shafee Abdullah later, Siew said according to the computerised tomography (CT) scan, the diameter of the 6.8cm-deep wound was 0.4cm.

“This (measurement) is when the brain tissue had come back to its normal state after the object (which caused the 6.8cm-deep wound) was no longer there,” he said.

Siew said such a wound could be interpreted with a pattern of injury resulting from using a hammer or an archery set.

“The hammer can explain the fracture in the skull, but cannot explain the track (wound) of the brain. It is unlikely to be a hammer blow, because the pattern is not consistent,” he said.

Siew was testifying in the trial of Nazrin’s widow Samirah Muzaffar, 46, and two teenagers, now aged 19 and 16, as well as an Indonesian woman still at large, Eka Wahyu Lestari, who were all charged with murdering Nazrin at his house in Mutiara Damansara, between 11.30pm on June 13, 2018, and 4am the following day.

During cross-examination, Muhammad Shafee showed the witness an animation of how the fire broke in Nazrin’s room and that the deceased could have panicked before falling down and hitting the side of the bed.

After watching the animation, Siew said it could possibly explain some of the patterns of injuries that he was not able to ascertain on Nazrin’s body during the post-mortem.

Samirah’s father, political analyst Chandra Muzaffar, was also seen in court today.

The trial before judge Ab Karim Ab Rahman continues on March 30.

- Bernama