MIRI, Jan 10 — Police have remanded a furniture shop worker in Piasau here to facilitate investigation into the murder of a female student of Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan Merbau yesterday.
Sarawak Criminal Investigation Department chief Datuk Dev Kumar said the seven-day remand order on the 33-year-old suspect from Kuala Lumpur was issued by magistrate Zuraini Ali Musa at the Miri Magistrate's Court today.
On the motive of the murder, he said police were still investigating the reason behind an argument between the suspect and the 13-year-old victim.
“The girl's mother, aged 35, who works at a hair salon, had known the suspect for two years but has been in a relationship with the man over the past one year,” he told Bernama here.
In the incident yesterday at about 11am, it was believed that the schoolgirl was strangled at a rented house in Permyjaya, Miri where she stayed with her sister, mother and the suspect.
Dev was quoted as saying the incident occurred when the victim was alone with the suspect as both the girl's mother and sister had gone to work and school respectively.
He said the victim was allegedly strangled to death during the argument before her body was stuffed into the boot of a car, to be dumped at an area in Kuala Baram.
However, the suspect was spotted by policemen on a patrol car from the Miri police headquarters and attempted to flee the scene but was arrested at a junction near the Miri Port at 5.55pm. — Bernama
