Felicia Teo's death: Male friend accused of dumping her body has case adjourned to Aug 5

SINGAPORE - The family of Lasalle College of the Arts student Felicia Teo, whose disappearance in 2007 was investigated 13 years later as a murder case, will have to wait longer for answers.

The victim's former schoolmate and friend Ahmad Danial Mohamed Rafa'ee was expected to plead guilty on Wednesday (July 6) to a number of charges but the matter has been adjourned for a pre-trial conference on Aug 5.

Ahmad, 37, is accused of leaving her body at Punggol Track 24 on or around June 30, 2007. The authorities only found a skull fragment at the scene.

Speaking to reporters after talks in chambers, his lawyer Mr Shashi Nathan said: "Both parties have multiple issues to resolve including facts, sentencing and documentation.

"However I am confident that we will be able to resolve matters fruitfully with the prosecution."

Ahmad had turned up at the State Courts at around 2.20pm on Wednesday accompanied by his legal team comprising Mr Nathan, Ms Tania Chin and Ms Laura Yeo from Withers KhattarWong.

He was charged in December 2020 with murdering Ms Teo, then 19, in a Marine Terrace flat on June 30, 2007.

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.

The authorities in Indonesia are trying to trace Mr Ragil's whereabouts but last month, the prosecution called for Ahmad to be given a discharge not amounting to an acquittal for the murder charge.

Although he was granted the discharge on June 27 this year, he can still be prosecuted for murder if relevant information or evidence were to emerge later.

Mr Nathan had earlier urged the court to grant Ahmad a full acquittal, which would mean he cannot be charged again with the same offence. This was turned down by the judge.

Ahmad was expected to plead guilty on Wednesday. He is facing six charges in all and Mr Ragil is named in all of them.

Aside from allegedly depositing Ms Teo's corpse in a public place, they are accused of misappropriating some of her belongings like 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 - by placing her mobile phone around East Coast Park to create the false impression they believed she was alive even though they knew she had already died.

The men also allegedly gave false information to two police officers by claiming they did not know what happened to her after she left the Marine Terrace flat, where she was last seen on June 30, 2007.

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

Ahmad, Mr Ragil and Ms Teo were said to have been friends and were students at Lasalle College of the Arts, according to their online profiles.

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.