The way things are going, chances are Hanif Basree will be declared innocent, not necessarily because he is innocent of any wrongdoing, but simply because it looks increasingly more difficult to prove beyond reasonable doubt (the burden of capital cases) that he, and he alone, murdered Noritta Samsudin.
At the very most, the prosecution has proven that he was sleeping with her, and that he has access to both Noritta and her apartment. Opportunity was there, the cause of death clear, the motive present, though a bit hazy (was it sex gone wrong or was it from a fit of jealousy?), and he doesn't really have much of an alibi.
The main problem for the prosecution, the way i see it, is that they can't pin Hanif:
(1) to be the only person at the scene of the crime when the murder took place (so many seminal stains to sift through, so much unaccounted semen in her vagina, a snafu by the forensic team to only take small samples of the bedmattress rather than examine the whole mattress, no eyewitness, etc.) and
(2) whether or not he was actually there during the murder (yesterday's testimony by Nor Azora claiming that the person she saw running away from the apartment at the point of the murder was "tall and dark skinned" (not Hanif), and that, although she knew him quite well enough to "identify him anywhere" (seen him often and taken lifts from him in his car), she was "not sure" whether the man she saw running away that night was Hanif. Of course mitigating factors come into play like the darkness and that she only saw the man for "5-10 seconds" at a distance, so while her testimony wasn't exactly damning to the prosecution case, it caused some damage by posing quite a few new questions that the prosecution has to answer.
Looking at how the defence has constructed their case (casting doubt on just about everything, and painting a very un-rosy picture of Noritta's nocturnal activities), if i were a betting man, i would say that the murder charge will probably not stick. There is just too much reasonable doubt at this point.
The prosecution still has time to cross-examine and perhaps recall witnesses to repair the damage done to their case. Let's see what happens.
Also, pls read Jeff Ooi's latest posting. Lots of people are upset about the Noritta trial being so public. My opinion: all the information is in the public domain, therefore its fair game for the press and the public. Its important for Malaysians to see justice at work for such a significant case, and the only way that's going to be done is that the facts are presented in the daily news. Also read Rehman Rashid's excellent take on the matter.
More: Read my take on Day 16 of the trial, "The trial continues..."
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