Businessman: I had sex with jogger the day she was killed

The accused: Shahril being led into the Alor Setar High Court.

ALOR SETAR: A businessman, charged with the murder of a jogger eight years ago, told a High Court that he had sex with the victim on the day she was murdered.

Shahril Jaafar, 33, in his defence statement in court, said at about 3pm on Jan 14, 2006, he had called a man named “Wayne” to get him a girl to fulfil his sexual urges after he watched a pornographic video earlier that day.

“I had told him my requirement for the girl to be a non-Malay in her 20s.

“At about 4pm, Wayne called me back and said he had arranged for the girl to meet me near the Cinta Sayang Club.

“He said the girl would look for me and at about 5pm, while I was waiting in my car near the club, the deceased Chee Gaik Yap suddenly appeared and knocked on my window.

“After introducing ourselves, I asked her to move to the back seat. She demanded RM350 and without further delay, we had sex,” Shahril said in his defence yesterday.

Shahril is charged with murdering Chee, 25, between Jan 14 and 15, 2006, near the Cinta Sayang Club in Taman Ria Jaya, Sungai Petani.

Chee, a marketing executive, was raped and her body dumped at the housing estate after being abducted while she was jogging in the neighbourhood.

On June 25 last year, the High Court here freed Shahril from a charge of murdering Chee after finding that the prosecution had failed to prove its case.

The appellate court had on Oct 13 set aside Shahril’s acquittal and ordered him to enter his defence.

In his defence yesterday, Shahril, who was represented by counsel Shamsul Sulaiman, added that he did not use a condom.

He said Chee left his car when his mother called him to pick her up after a golf tournament at the Cinta Sayang Club.

He claimed that when Chee left, she was still alive and had no injuries on her.

“It was the first and last time I saw her. I only got to know about a body being found outside the club the following day, and discovered that Chee had been murdered after reading about it in a newspaper the next day,” Shahril said, adding that “Wayne” could not be reached on the phone.