The High Court here today heard that three video recordings containing the movements of C/Insp Azilah Hadri and Cpl Sirul Azhar Umar at the Hotel Malaya in Kuala Lumpur were kept a day before being handed over to the officer investigating the murder of Mongolian Altantuya Shaariibuu.
Sgt Amran Abdul Aziz, of the Police’s Special Action Force (UTK), told the court that he kept the tapes overnight in a cupboard at his office because he had to follow some other members in the unit to investigate another case.
Amran, 40, who is attached to the Serious Crime Unit (D9) of Kuala Lumpur Police, said that he took the tapes from Hotel Malaya operations manager Jimmy Loo on Nov 10, 2006.
Besides the three tapes, Amran said that he also took documents pertaining to guests’ records to be handed over to the investigating officer.
“I received instructions from ASP Zulkarnain Samsuddin to go to Hotel Malaya to meet Jimmy Loo to retrieve the recordings from the hotel’s closed circuit television camera (CCTV) system for Oct 9, 18 and 19, 2006 and certain documents pertaining to its guests,” he said during examination-in-chief by Deputy Public Prosecutor Manoj Kurup.
Amran is the prosecution’s 45th witness in the Altantuya murder trial, which entered its 52nd day today.
Azilah, 31 and Sirul Azhar, 36, both from the UTK, are charged with murdering Altantuya, 28, at a location between Lot 12843 and Lot 16735, Mukim Bukit Raja here between 10pm on Oct 19 and 1am on Oct 20, 2006.
Political analyst Abdul Razak Abdullah Baginda, 47, is charged with abetment. If convicted, all three face the mandatory death sentence.
Amran said that he handed over the tapes the next day to investigation officer, Tonny Lunggan, but had mistakenly written Nov 11 as the date on one of them.
He said that he also mistakenly wrote Nov 6, 2006 as the dates on the other two tapes but could not recollect why the mistakes happened.
Asked why a mistake in the date also happened in the case materials handing over form - it was written Nov 10 when it should have been Nov 11, Amran said: “ The actual date I handed them over was Nov 11, 2006.”
He also said that he did not take and other video recordings except for the three handed to him by Jimmy and that they were in good condition.
He added that he only went once to Hotel Malaya which was on Nov 10.
Meanwhile, the prosecution’s 44th witness, Sgt Mohd Saad Kimbok 49, also of the Kuala Lumpur Police, had earlier told the court that he was responsible for bringing Azilah, Sirul Azhar, Abdul Razak and L/Cpl Rohaniza Roslan (Azilah’s girlfriend) to the Kuala Lumpur Hospital for blood samples to be taken on Nov 9, 2006.
He said that prior to the samples being taken, he had told the doctor in-charge that the four suspects were involved in a “special case” and needed to be kept separate from the public.
After obtaining their blood samples from Dr Zainal Effendy Zainal Abidin at the hospital, Mohd Saad said he handed them over to Tonny for his further action.
Dr Zainal Effendy Zainal Abidin, 36, who was then with the hospital’s emergency department (now attached to Hospital Sultan Abdul Halim, Sungai Petani, Kedah), said he took blood samples from all four after they had given their permission by signing the relevant forms.
Zainal Effendy, who was the prosecution’s 43rd witness, said the samples were extracted from their right arms and kept in bottles provided.
He said that when they were brought to the hospital, the suspects were all in handcuffs, which were only removed when the blood samples were taken.
He added that he then handed over the samples together with the appropriate documents to Mohd Saad for the purposes of DNA analysis.
The hearing before Judge Datuk Mohd Zaki Md Yasin resumes on Monday.
