Watch, money missing after fire.
A fireman told the Shah Alam High Court hearing the murder case of Cradle Fund CEO Nazrin Hassan that his widow behaved “casually” despite knowing her husband was trapped in a bedroom that was on fire.
Mohamad Afzan Majid from the Damansara fire and rescue station, said Samirah Muzaffar did not seem sad when he and his colleagues arrived at the couple’s Mutiara Damansara home on June 14, 2018.
Afzan said Samirah did not exhibit any signs of grief as expected of someone whose husband was trapped in a burning house.
“She waved at us when we arrived in the fire truck. Three of us approached her, where she told us she was the house owner and that her husband was trapped in the bedroom that was on fire,” Afzan told deputy public prosecutor Ashyraf Ashy’ari Kamaruzaman.
Samirah and two teenagers are charged with Nazrin’s murder. Another suspect, Indonesian national Eka Wahyu Lestari, is still at large.
Afzan said in his 22 years as a fireman, he had never seen relatives of victims who were as composed as Samirah.
He said he has extinguished over 500 fires to date and recalled that Samirah’s behaviour was inconsistent with that of a homeowner whose property was burning down and with lives at stake.
“Throughout my experience in putting out fires, the homeowner will immediately leave the premises and wait for us outside.
“Usually, homeowners will cry and wail with grief when it involves victims that were burnt to death.
“This has never happened before,” he told the court.
He said upon arrival at Nazrin’s double-storey semi-detached house, he and two other firemen rushed up to the bedroom to put out the fire.
“The victim’s wife also followed us to the room upstairs. I tried to stop her from storming into the room because it was dangerous,” he said.
He said his colleague later informed him that there was a charred body in the room.
“The woman begged us to let her into the room so she could see her husband. My colleague and I agreed.
“When we entered the room, I saw the charred remains of a man clad in underwear. The woman kneeled beside her husband and only kept quiet,” Afzan said, adding that Samirah spent about five minutes beside her husband’s body.
According to Afzan, Samirah stood about two feet from the corpse and inspected her husband’s head for about five minutes before he asked her to head downstairs.
Afzan said that he then brought Samirah downstairs where she went straight to the kitchen to make milk for her toddler son.
Afzan also said that the fire was extinguished within two minutes as the flames were not big.
Asked by defence counsel Muhammad Shafee Abdullah if the fireman was too busy to see Samirah’s expression, Afzan agreed that this could be possible.
“One thing for sure, she did not care about her safety and insisted to go into the room to see her husband?” Shafee asked, to which Afzan replied “Yes”.
Meanwhile, the High Court was told that several items in Nazrin’s room were missing after the fire broke out there last year.
Shafee highlighted to Afzan about a Tissot watch and foreign currencies that were nowhere to be found in the room after the June 14, 2018 fire.
To that, Afzan said he did not know about the missing items.
Shafee also showed several pictures taken by a Fire and Rescue Department officer and pictures taken by police on a handphone placed at the bedside’s table. The lawyer asked if Afzan noticed that the handphone was not seen in the police pictures.
Afzan said he agreed with the lawyer’s suggestion.
The fireman also said that house-owners and the occupants must leave the scene when a fire breaks out.
“I do not know whether there were orders from police or by my colleagues to tell the house-owner and other individuals to leave the house,” Afzan said, when questioned by Shafee about Samirah, two women and a teenager at the kitchen area.
Afzan had said that he saw two women and a baby near Samirah’s kitchen table as well as a teenage boy coming out from a room near the kitchen.
Another witness, police officer Nor Azura Sulaiman, testified that she received a call from security guard Raju Kumar Pandit on June 14 afternoon about a fire that had broken out at Nazrin’s house.
“The situation was chaotic and very noisy on the other end. I only took down Raju’s name and contact number and transferred the call to the Petaling Jaya district’s command centre,” she added.
The hearing continues before High Court judge Ab Karim Ab Rahman on Oct 3.
Earlier reports:
Sept 28, Cradle Fund CEO Murder Trial: Cop Saw Head and Face Injuries on Deceased
Sept 20, Cradle Fund CEO Murder Trial: Public Entered House After Fire
Sept 20, Cradle Fund CEO Murder Trial: Cop Who Received Call on Fire, Photographer Testify
Sept 13, Cradle Fund CEO Murder Trial: Guard Tried to Break Down Bedroom Door
Sept 6, Prosecution to Prove Widow. Stepsons Killed Cradle Fund CEO