Late last month, there was an interesting development in relation to a missing person case that occurred 15 years ago — the murder suspect in Felicia Teo’s case was given a discharge not amounting to an acquittal.
While the suspect, Ahmad Daniel Mohamed Rafa’ee, was expected to plead guilty to less severe charges on Wednesday (6 Jul), the court eventually adjourned his hearing.
Source: Shin Min Daily News on Facebook
Justifying the move, Ahmad’s lawyer said that there were “multiple issues to resolve”, but remained confident that they will arrive at a resolution “fruitfully”.
Speaking to members of the press, Ahmad’s defence council shared that the issues that needed resolving included the facts of the case, sentencing, and documentation, reports The Straits Times (ST).
He added that the defence and prosecution were in “polar positions” for some of these matters. They will thus be moving to a pre-trial conference in an attempt to resolve the issues.
Nonetheless, the lawyer said that they’re “confident” that they will arrive at a resolution.
The pre-trial conference is reportedly scheduled to take place on 5 Aug. It’s unclear if Ahmad still plans to plead guilty.
According to ST, Ahmad was originally expected to plead guilty to a number of less severe charges on Wednesday (6 Jul). These alleged offences include:
The 37-year-old, who was Ms Teo’s schoolmate, was reportedly one of two persons who last saw her at a Marine Parade HDB.
The other individual who was with them at the time is identified as an Indonesian man by the name of Ragil. He’s currently at large and the Indonesian authorities are trying to locate him.
In Dec 2020, when the authorities revisited the case, Ahmad faced charges for the alleged murder of Ms Teo.
On 27 Jun this year, the court granted him a discharge not amounting to an acquittal in relation to the murder charge. This means that they can still charge him for murder if relevant information come to light in the future.
In contrast, a full acquittal would mean that the court won’t be able to charge him again for the same offence.
There have been many interesting developments, to say the least, since the authorities revived the case in 2020.
While what happened to Ms Teo remains a mystery, we hope sufficient info will come to light from the court hearing.
Consequently, we hope her loved ones will be able to gain some form of closure. And perhaps more importantly, the authorities will be able to seek justice for Ms Teo’s disappearance.
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Featured image adapted from Shin Min Daily News on Facebook and by MS News.
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