Mona Fandeymyanmar

Nur Maznah binti Ismail (1 January 1956 – 2 November 2001), known professionally as Mona Fandey, was a Malaysian pop singer and murderer. She was executed on 2 November 2001 at the age of 45, after being convicted of the murder of Batu Talam state assemblyman Mazlan Idris in 1993.

Early life and career Maznah started singing and dancing at a very young age. Adopting her stage name Mona Fandey, she released her debut album titled Diana in 1987, with her husband Mohamad Nor Affandi Abdul Rahman endorsing and funding her career, booking several TV appearances, but her career hardly took off.

Following her failure as a singer, she and Affandi turned to practicing witchcraft, and by becoming a bomoh Mona is said to have attracted high-profile clients, including politicians from UMNO. By providing services to wealthy clients, Mona was able to fund a luxury lifestyle of staying in 5 star hotels and owning several expensive cars (from brands such as Jaguar, Mercedes-Benz and BMW) as well as purchasing several mansions throughout Malaysia.

Mona left behind a daughter from her first marriage named Mazdiana Affandi, with two step-sons from her marriage with Affandi. and thereafter meeting Mona at Raub, Pahang. Soon afterwards, Mona was reported to have gone on a shopping spree in Kuala Lumpur where she bought a new Mercedes-Benz and also bought a new cell phone, gold jewelry, sofas, kitchen cabinets, a TV and a video recorder. All items were paid for in cash. On 15 July 1993, Mona checked into Tung Shin Hospital for plastic surgery on her face, forehead and nose.

After arresting the couple's assistant Juraimi Hassan on 13 July 1993 for an unrelated drug consumption offence and questioning him at Dong police station,

On 2 August 1993, Mona Fandey, her husband Mohamad Nor Affandi Abdul Rahman and the couple's assistant Juraimi Hassan were charged with the murder of Mazlan Idris and remanded in custody.

Allegations of involvement in other murders In the aftermath of Mazlan's murder, Mona was also suspected by police to have been linked to other unrelated serious crimes, such as involvement in the disappearance of five housemaids who had worked for her at various times during the late 1980s.

Additionally, the remains of a family of three (Tan Kim Ann, his wife and their five-month-old son), whose dismembered and mutilated bodies were discovered buried at two different sites in Kemaman District in early August 1993, were identified as former followers of Mona who had also mysteriously disappeared a couple of years earlier. News reporters at the crime scene near Kijal spotted Mona's husband Nor Affandi being taken away in a police car, and it was later revealed that he owned the plots of land where the bodies were discovered. Authorities believed the victims were offered as human sacrifices as part of a witchcraft ritual,

Police also linked the murder of Irma Zhilan who had disappeared from Klang in early 1992 to which her dismembered body was found scattered across three locations in Pandamaran soon after to Mona.

Preliminary judicial inquiry On 26 October 1993, pre-trial hearings in relation to the murder of Mazlan Idris began. In opening statements, the head of C.I.D.'s Kidnap and Ransom unit Takbir Ahmad Nazir Ahmad described how suspect Mohamad Nor Affandi Abdul Rahman offered to lead detectives to the remains of Mazlan while being interviewed by the police on 22 July 1993. Affandi then led the officers to a house in Lata Jarum in Pahang, where after ordering the padlocked door of a storeroom to be opened he then indicated an area of the cement floor for the team to start digging. An hour later body parts were discovered at a depth of about five feet, and subsequent investigation of dental records proved the remains to be those of Mazlan Idris.

Chief Inspector Mahpop Jaafar also gave evidence that suspect Juraimi Hassan had informed the police that a body was buried in the same house in Raub, and that he had drawn a sketch map of the house with locations marked on it for where the body was and where Mazlan was actually murdered.

Forensic pathologist Doctor Abdul Rahman Yusof testified to having performed an autopsy on Mazlan's body, and asserted that the neck was severed with a sharp weapon that caused the victim to die instantly from a combination of catastrophic blood loss and the immediate stopping of vital organs (such as the heart and lungs). Doctor Rahman agreed with the Deputy Public Prosecutor Suriyadi Halim Omar that the time of death was at some point between 2 July and 8 July of that year.

Murder trial On 12 September 1994, the trio's trial for the capital murder of Mazlan Idris began at the Temerloh, Pahang High Court in front of a seven-person jury (trial by jury was only abolished in Malaysia from 1 January 1995). Mona Fandey, Mohamad Nor Affandi Abdul Rahman and Juraimi Hassan all pled not guilty to the charge.

Prosecution evidence Giving evidence for the prosecution, employees from Bank Bumiputera Malaysia and the Oriental Bank in Kuala Lumpur confirmed that Mazlan had cashed personal cheques worth a total of RM289,000 from three different bank branches on the last day he was seen alive, other witnesses confirmed Mona and Nor Affandi had purchased furniture worth RM11,900 and electrical goods worth RM4,769 on 8 and 9 July 1993 to be delivered to a house in Subang Jaya, while salesmen from the La Puteri Goldsmith and the Far East Goldsmith shops in the Ampang Park shopping center gave evidence of selling jewelry worth over RM27,000 to Mona on 3 July 1993, all of which was paid for in cash. A lawyer also testified that he met Nor Affandi at the Park Royal Hotel in Kuala Lumpur on 5 July 1993, where he was asked to notarize documents (apparently signed by Mazlan Idris himself) giving Nor Affandi power of attorney over 5 pieces of land he claimed to have bought from Mazlan.

Challenge on admissibility of statements On 23 October 1994, while giving evidence in his own defence, Juraimi Hassan challenged the admissibility of statements he gave to the police while under arrest, claiming to have been beaten and threatened into making a confession. Hassan also accused the police of inducing him into admitting guilt by promising a reduced sentence by turning state's evidence against his co-accused. However, the court ruled that Hassan would have registered a complaint as soon as possible if he had been beaten, rather that waiting until he was on trial many months later, therefore there was no evidence of mistreatment and his statement could thus be submitted as evidence.

Similarly, while giving evidence in her own defence on 16 November 1994, Mona Fandey claimed to have been mistreated during her interrogation by officers at the Bukit Aman police headquarters in July 1993, alleging that officers pressed down on her stitches from recent plastic surgery to inflict pain on her. While Mona claimed she was given 3 blank sheets of paper per day to sign while in custody, detective Takbir Ahmad Nazir Mohanmad asserted that she had willingly signed all 33 pages of her cautioned statement after she had finished recording it. After deliberation, the court ruled that she had also given all statements voluntarily and allowed them to be admitted as evidence. However, Judge Datuk Mokhtar ordered that sections of the statement regarding two separate murders committed in Selangor and Terengganu involving the three defendants be redacted, as they were irrelevant to the charges Mona was on trial for and therefore should not be revealed to the jury.

Defence submissions On 23 November 1994, Justice Datuk Mokhtar Sidin declared that the prosecution has established prima facie evidence against the three accused and called them to make their defence against the charge of murdering Mazlan Idris.

Taking the stand, Juraimi Hassan admitted to beheading Mazlan with an axe at around 10pm on 2 July 1993 in the house where the victim's body was discovered. Hassan asserted that he was acting under orders from Nor Affandi, who then instructed him to dismember the body and bury the remains. According to Hassan, Mazlan arrived at the house on the night in question with Mona and Nor Affandi to attend an occult ritual. Changing into a sarong, Mazlan then lay down in a candlelit bathroom, where Mona placed an orchid on his forehead and told him to close his eyes and wait for a "mysterious voice" to ask him how much money he wanted to appear. When Mazlan fell asleep, Nor Affandi ordered Hassan to kill him, then Mona and Nor Affandi took a shower in another bathroom to wash off the blood. Under cross-examination, Nor Affandi admitted that while he claimed to be too traumatized to stop at any of the 10 police stations he thereafter passed on the way to the Plaza Hotel in Kuala Lumpur, he had recovered sufficiently to forge the signature of Mazlan on documents and attempt to fraudulently transfer ownership of the victim's land when he held a meeting with a lawyer the next morning.

Mona refused the chance to give testimony or be cross examined, however she did read a prepared statement from the dock where she denied all involvement in Mazlan's murder. Deputy Public Prosecutor Zakaira Sam rebutted her pleas of innocence by pointing out that she did not report the crime to the authorities, and instead went on a wild shopping binge the day afterwards.

Defence lawyers for Hassan asked the court to take his young age and lack of education into consideration as mitigating circumstances, while lawyers for Mona and Nor Affandi declined to make any submissions after the couple informed the judge they would accept the court's decision. at one point exclaiming "Looks like I have many fans!". Observers later remarked that Mona had finally received the spotlight she had craved her entire life, with her demeanour more comparable to a celebrity arriving at a movie premiere than a criminal defendant being escorted into court by prison officers.

Verdict On 9 February 1995, Mona Fandey, her husband Mohamad Nor Affandi Abdul Rahman and the couple's assistant Juraimi Hassan were found guilty as charged and sentenced to death by hanging for the murder of Mazlan Idris. Speaking to reporters after the sentence was handed down, Mona stated "I am happy with the decision and I thank Malaysians", before blowing kisses to a crowd of bystanders. All three convicts were then transported to the death row section of Kajang Prison in Selangor to await their execution.

According to prison officers, Mona was a well behaved inmate who read the Quran and performed Islamic prayers five times a day. Mona and her co-accused were given a last meal of Kentucky Fried Chicken on the night before their execution. It was reported that during her execution Mona uttered the words "aku takkan mati", meaning "I will never die", and was still calm and smiling.

Legacy Mona Fandey gained more notoriety than she had when she was still a pop singer. There was wide local and even international media coverage and plenty of public interest. Anti-death penalty movements including Amnesty International voiced their opposition to the execution of the trio. In 2002, Malaysian film director Amir Muhammad made a short film entitled Mona in his shorts series.

In 2006, a film by Dain Iskandar Said entitled Dukun was widely assumed to be based on Mona Fandey. The public screening of this highly anticipated film was constantly pushed back, most likely due to concerns relating to the contents of the film, the relationship with Mona Fandey, and the implications for her family. However, the movie was leaked online through Facebook on early February 2018. The movie was released in cinemas on 5 April 2018.

The crime was covered in a chapter called Pop Singer Witch Doctor in the best-selling Malaysian Murders & Mysteries book written by journalists Martin Vengadesan and Andrew Sagayam.

The Mona Fandey affair was one of the last jury trials to be conducted in Malaysia. The sensational nature of the case contributed toward the government's decision to discontinue the jury system. All trials by jury were abolished on 1 January 1995.