Disappearance
On March 1, 2012, Nurul Nadirah Abdullah left the Seri Delima Flats in Bandar Seri Alam, Johor, to go to a nearby shop. Contemporary reporting often described her as five years old; later court reporting gave her age more precisely as four years and nine months. When she did not return, the disappearance triggered a major search.
Police later recovered human remains from an abandoned area in Nusa Damai, Masai. Malaysia's Chemistry Department compared DNA from the remains with a sample from Dirang's mother and confirmed the child's identity. This file does not reproduce the graphic condition in which she was found.
Arrest and prosecution
Muidin Maidin was arrested and charged with murder in March 2012. Prosecutors alleged that he had taken Dirang from the area near her home and killed her in Johor. During the High Court case, the prosecution relied on forensic and circumstantial evidence, including DNA evidence later summarized in appellate reporting.
In May 2013, the Johor Bahru High Court found that prosecutors had established a prima facie case and ordered Muidin to enter his defence. The trial then proceeded to judgment.
High Court conviction
On June 28, 2013, High Court judge Abdul Halim Aman convicted Muidin of murder after finding that the prosecution had proved the charge beyond a reasonable doubt. Under the law then applicable, the court imposed the mandatory death sentence.
The conviction did not end the litigation. Muidin pursued the ordinary appellate process, challenging the verdict and sentence.
Appeals
The Court of Appeal rejected his challenge in 2014. In 2015, the Federal Court — Malaysia's highest court — also dismissed his appeal, leaving the murder conviction and death sentence in force.
Years later, Malaysia abolished the mandatory death penalty and created a special process allowing people already under death sentences to seek resentencing. That reform did not automatically erase murder convictions; it permitted the Federal Court to decide whether an existing death sentence should be replaced.
2024 sentence review
Muidin applied under the Revision of Sentence of Death and Imprisonment for Natural Life (Temporary Jurisdiction of the Federal Court) Act 2023 to have his death sentence commuted. On July 9, 2024, a three-judge Federal Court panel led by Chief Justice Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat dismissed the application.
The court therefore left the death sentence intact. Importantly, the 2024 proceeding was a sentence-review application, not a new finding of guilt: the murder conviction had already survived the ordinary appeal process years earlier.
Timeline
March 1, 2012: Dirang disappears after leaving her home area in Bandar Seri Alam to go to a nearby shop.
March 8, 2012: remains are recovered in Nusa Damai, Masai; DNA testing later confirms Dirang's identity.
March 2012: Muidin Maidin is charged with murder.
May 2013: the High Court orders Muidin to enter his defence after finding a prima facie prosecution case.
June 28, 2013: the High Court convicts Muidin of murder and imposes the mandatory death sentence.
2014: the Court of Appeal dismisses his challenge.
2015: the Federal Court dismisses the ordinary final appeal.
July 9, 2024: the Federal Court rejects Muidin's later application to commute the death sentence under Malaysia's revised sentencing framework.
Current status
The case is classified as solved / adjudicated. Muidin Maidin remains the person convicted of Dirang's murder, and the latest reviewed Federal Court decision, dated July 9, 2024, left his death sentence in place. The reviewed sources do not show that this final sentence-review decision was later reversed.
Sources
- Malay Mail / Bernama — Federal Court rejects review bid and upholds sentence, July 9, 2024
- The Star — Federal Court rejects Dirang murder sentence-review bid, July 9, 2024
- The Star — High Court conviction and sentence, June 29, 2013
- The Star — DNA identification after the disappearance, March 12, 2012
- The Star — murder charge, March 26, 2012