A witness in the Altantuya Shaariibuu murder trial testified today that he had found a piece of paper with details of the slain Mongolian scrawled on it at chief inspector Azilah Hadri's office.

The Shah Alam High Court was told by ASP Zulkarnain Samsudin ( left ), 34, that first accused Azilah, 31, had brought him and two other officers to Azilah's Special Action Squad (UTK) office in Bukit Aman on Nov 12 last year.

He told deputy public prosecutor Tun Majid Tun Hamzah that they seized four sheets of paper found in a blue bag in Azilah's office cubicle.

Zulkarnain described one of the papers as having the name of political analyst Abdul Razak Baginda's father's name, Abdullah Malim Baginda, and their Damansara Heights home address on it.

Also written in black ink randomly on the paper was 'Room 823, Hotel Malaya', 'Aminah', 'Bala', 'ASP Suresh' and several phone numbers.

The serious crime unit officer also said the other three sheets of paper contained billing details to two numbers, 0173992411 and 0173271703.

Earlier in the trial, witness P Balasubramaniam who is Abdul Razak's private investigator had earlier testified that the number '0173992411' as belonging to Altantuya.

Zulkarnain also said he had seized a note written on pink paper, two notepads and a personal digital assistant (PDA) device from Abdul Razak's office on Nov 13 last year.

When made to identify the sized items, he read out what was written on the pink paper, "Mr Razak please contact me. 0173992411. Amin or Amina", "0123122303" and "0122409311".

However, Tun Majid did not quiz Zulkarnain as to the contents of the notepads before ending his examination.

Trial-within-a-trial

At this juncture, second accused corporal Sirul Azhar Umar's counsel Kamarul Hisham Kamaruddin had requested for a trial-within-a-trial to be held before the defence begins their cross examination of the police officer.

The mini-trial pertained to the admissibility of evidence on the discovery of Altantuya's jewellery in Sirul's jacket.

He argued that two of his witnesses are police officers and he was "concern about the sanctity of this witnesses".

"Out of fairness we ask to be given the first opportunity to depose this witness on the stand.

"Secondly there is no reason that a trial-within-a-trial could not be conducted in the same manner as that of trial-within-a-trial with regard to confession to (UTK deputy commander ACP) Mastor (Mohd Ariff)," he said.

On July 10, judge Mohd Zaki Md Yasin had ruled Mastor's evidence that Sirul had confessed to the murder as inadmissible in a trial-within-a-trial before the defence team cross examined Mastor.

Today, the judge however decided to stick with his earlier decision to have the trial-within-a-trial after both sides have finished examining the witness.

Chief inspector Azilah Hadri's lawyer Hazman Ahmad began his cross examination by asking Zulkarnain to describe the layout of the Serious Crimes Unit (D9) in the Kuala Lumpur police headquarters.

Zulkarnain who initially declined to answer for security reason later agreed to sketch the office plan for it to be presented to court tomorrow.

The hearing resumes tomorrow.