KUALA LUMPUR: A civil suit brought against the government by the father of murder victim Nurin Jazlin over the circulation of her post-mortem pictures will go to full trial.
This followed the government’s withdrawal in the High Court here yesterday of its application to strike out the suit.
Judicial Commissioner Datin Zabariah Mohd Yusof made the decision in chambers with no order as to costs.
Harjinder Singh Sandhu, counsel for Jazimin Abdul Jalil, told reporters that Zabariah made the order after hearing submissions from him and senior federal counsel Noorin Badaruddin and Zureen Elina Mohd Dom, for the defendants, the Inspector-General of Police, Selangor police chief, Petaling Jaya police chief and the Malaysian government.
He said he objected to Noorin’s application for RM10,000 costs to be awarded to the defendants.
On Oct 30 last year, Zabariah rejected Jazimin’s bid to have the court summarily dispose of his suit by way of determination of the question of law.
Zabariah held that the case must be decided by way of a full trial.
However, the trial has yet to be fixed as the court has to hear Jazimin’s application to include lance-corporal Amran Arifin as defendant in the suit following an admission by the defendants in their statement of defence that Nurin’s port-mortem pictures were distributed by Amran.
The court has set Jan 29 to hear the application. In the original statement of claim Amran was not named as a defendant.
Jazimin, 35, a security company employee, initiated legal action against the defendants for negligence over the distribution of the eight-year-old’s autopsy pictures on the Internet.
He is seeking general, exemplary and aggravated damages, interest, costs and other reliefs deemed fit by the court, claiming that the pictures were of a confidential and private nature and were not for public consumption but only for investigation of Nurin’s case.
On Aug 20, 2007, Nurin Jazlin went missing after she had gone to the night market near her home in Section 1, Wangsa Maju, here.
Twenty-seven days later, her body was found stuffed in a gymnasium bag in front of a shop in Jalan PJS 1/48, Petaling Jaya.
An autopsy revealed that she was sexually abused. — Bernama