Mona Fandey

Nur Maznah binti Ismail (1 January 1956 – 2 November 2001), known professionally as Mona Fandey, was a Malaysian pop singer and murderer.

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 house maids who worked for her at various times during the late 1980s.

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.

Malaysian shamans and traditional medicine practitioners, who often claimed to act as intermediaries for supernatural spirits and gods, were traditionally popular with the rich and famous, including local politicians seeking an advantage over their rivals at election times.

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.

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.

In 1993, the couple were approached by Mazlan Idris, a politician who was eyeing the position of the Menteri Besar of Pahang.

The couple agreed by promising to give Mazlan a talisman comprising a tongkat and a songkok supposedly owned by Sukarno, the first President of Indonesia, with an offer of RM 2.5 million.

In exchange, Mazlan agreed to pay RM 500,000 and giving them 10 land titles as guarantee for the remainder.

Mazlan was reported missing on 2 July 1993 after withdrawing almost RM300,000 from various banks in Kuala Lumpur 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 22 July 1993 Mazlan's dismembered and partial skinned body was discovered by the Royal Malaysia Police, buried six feet deep in a pit covered with cement on a property owned by Mazlan in Pahang.

His body was dismembered into 18 parts and buried in a hole at the storeroom of an unfinished house.

Police also found an altar and statues of deities, as well as knives and an axe at the scene.

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.

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, however Tan's sister made a statement that his wife arrived at her house in an agitated state without her baby one day asking to borrow a large amount of money, which coupled with the fact that the remains of the parents and baby were discovered at two separate locations raised the possibility the infant was kidnapped for ransom, and the entire family was murdered after the money was handed over to prevent the crime being reported.

In August 1993, police dug up 4 glass containers containing human internal organs from the back garden of the house where Mazlan's remains were found, which were believed to belong to Zhilan.

Several statues of deities, such as the 10-armed Hindu goddess Durga, were also recovered from the same plastic bag that held the glass containers.

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.

Plastic surgeon Doctor Wong Kang Shen confirmed that he had performed RM13,000 worth of cosmetic procedures on Mona during a 5 hour operation on 15 July 1993, 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.

Doctor Abdul Rahman Yusof, who had conducted the official autopsy, gave evidence that Mazlan's head was cut off by three strikes to his neckbone, possibly by an axe.

There were no defensive wounds on the body, which the expert witness believed was in a lying position on the ground when the fatal blows were struck.

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.

Giving evidence for the prosecution, employees from Bank Bumiputera Malaysia and the Oriental Bank in Kuala Lumpur confirmed that Mazizn had cashed personal cheques worth a total of RM289,000 from three different bank branches on the last day he was seen alive, and a Umno member who had attended a meeting at Mazizn's office in Raub that evening testified that Nor Affandi was sitting in the passenger seat of Mazizn's car as it drove away afterwards.

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.

Maznah started singing and dancing at a very young age.