A woman who allegedly flushed her newborn baby down the toilet five years ago, and was acquitted for the charge, has now been ordered to stand trial for the crime by the Federal Court.
24-year old Nurul Syuhada Shamsudin, who is married and six months pregnant, has been ordered to enter her defence at the Penang High Court.
On January 25, 2011, Nurul Syuhada was acquitted by the High Court of the charge of murdering her baby.
After her murder charge was reduced to one of concealment of birth by secret disposal of a dead body, the Court of Appeal imposed a RM3,000 fine on Nurul Syuhada.
Federal Court judge Justice Suriyadi Halim Omar, leading a five-man panel, set aside the orders passed down by the Penang High Court and Court of Appeal after hearing submissions by both parties.
“We feel there is something incorrect in the decisions of the High Court and Court of Appeal. We allowed the appeal by the prosecution,” he said in an unanimous decision yesterday, as reported by The Star Online‘s M Mageswari.
“She will be remanded pending the hearing. You file a formal bail application (for her),” he told her lawyer.
earlier at the hearing, DPP Muhamad Iskandar submitted that there sufficient evidence of murder produced before the judge, in that a co-worker of Nurul Syuhada’s had heard the sound of a baby crying followed by toilet water flushing, while the co-worker was in the next cubicle on the day of the incident.
Muhamad Iskandar also said a cleaner had notified a security guard on duty that day that the toilet had clogged up, and the firemen who broke it open found the baby stuck inside the toilet bowl.
Nurul Syuhada was accused of committing the crime in a women’s toilet of the Jabil factory at Bayan Lepas, George Town, between 3.30am and 7am on Dec 30, 2009.
In the original judgment, Justice Zamani A Rahim said live birth was not proven and that the prosecution’s case was weakened when the actual cause of death was not ascertained.
