Felicia Teo's death: Lawyers seek full acquittal of murder charge for her friend

Lawyers for a man initially accused of killing Ms Felicia Teo in 2007 filed an appeal on Friday (July 8) for him to be fully acquitted of the murder charge.

If granted, Ahmad Danial Mohamed Rafa'ee cannot be charged again with the same offence.

The 37-year-old is represented by lawyers Shashi Nathan, Tania Chin and Laura Yeo from Withers KhattarWong.

He was charged in December 2020 with murdering Ms Teo in a Marine Terrace flat on June 30, 2007. She was 19 and a student of Lasalle College of the Arts.

Ahmad, who is out on $20,000 bail, was said to have committed the offence with an Indonesian man identified as Mr Ragil Putra Setia Sukmarahjana, then 18.

Both men are said to be former schoolmates of Ms Teo.

This is the second attempt by Ahmad's legal team to have the murder charge dropped.

Mr Nathan had urged the court last month to grant Ahmad a full acquittal. But the court disagreed, granting a discharge not amounting to an acquittal.

This means Ahmad can be charged with murder later if further evidence emerges.

Mr Ragil is still at large, with the authorities in Indonesia trying to trace his whereabouts.

Ahmad currently faces six charges. Mr Ragil is named in all of them.

The pair are accused of unlawfully dumping Ms Teo's corpse in Punggol Track 24 on or around June 30, 2007.

The authorities later found a skull fragment at the scene.

The two men are also accused of misappropriating some of her belongings, including her mobile phone.

They are said to have also intentionally omitted to furnish information about Ms Teo's sudden or unnatural death to the authorities even though they were legally bound to do so.

Another charge involves fabricating false evidence.

They had allegedly placed her mobile phone at around East Coast Park to create the false impression that they believed she was alive even though they knew she had died.

The men also purportedly gave false information to two police officers by claiming they did not know what happened to Ms Teo after she left the Marine Terrace flat where she was last seen alive.

Court documents did not disclose how Ms Teo died and who was responsible for her death.

Ahmad was expected to plead guilty on July 6 to a number of charges but the matter was adjourned for a pre-trial conference on Aug 5.

Ms Teo's family last saw her on June 29, 2007, when she left her home in Bras Basah.

Closed-circuit television footage later showed her entering a lift in a Marine Terrace housing block with two men.

The police classified the case as a missing persons incident in 2007 as they had nothing to link the two men to Ms Teo's disappearance.

After years of review, the case was referred to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) in 2020.

A breakthrough came after the CID found belongings believed to have been with Ms Teo when she was reported missing.

Ahmad was then arrested and charged with murder.