Murder no mystery, prosecutors say, but motive not as clear

Oct. 16--Broward prosecutors plan to show a jury, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Munawar Toha murdered his wife in March 2010.

They plan to show that he put her body in her car, drove the car from his Coral Springs home to the parking lot behind his job on the 4100 block of Powerline Road, and released the driverless vehicle into a lake, unaware that a video camera was recording those last movements.

But in the trial that got under way Wednesday at the Broward County Courthouse, jurors will not hear a clear answer to a troubling question -- why?

Toha, 67, faces life in prison if convicted of the murder of Surya Sari-Prihatin, 41. The two were married for 10 years before she disappeared on March 23, 2010. Toha was arrested and charged with her murder two weeks later.

Prosecutor Tom Coleman made no promises to the jury about establishing Toha's motive for the crime, although some early witness testimony raised possibilities.

The victim's best friend, Ade Pnakovich, said Toha was a controlling figure in Sari-Prihatin's life, ultimately ending the women's friendship. A bank teller testified that Toha stood behind his wife as she withdrew more than $5,000 from her personal bank account the day before she vanished. And an insurance agent said she sold a policy that would pay Toha $150,000 in the event of his wife's death.

That policy was sold in November 2008, along with a policy that would have paid the wife $100,000 if Toha should die.

Prosecutors don't have to prove motive to establish that someone committed a crime. In this case, Coleman said, the physical evidence and Toha's strange behavior after Sari-Prihatin disappeared will be more than enough to convince a jury to find him guilty of murder.

Blood found in the Toha family's kitchen, on the doorway leading into the garage, and on the garage floor indicate that the victim was attacked in the house, a Coral Springs police officer testified. An autopsy showed she was struck in the head five times, Coleman said.

A key piece of evidence, the surveillance video showing the dumping of the victim's body, will be shown to jurors Thursday.

"At no point in time will you be able to tell" it is Toha in the video, Coleman said. But the person in the video leaves the scene on a bicycle, and Toha showed up at a friend's house a short time later on a bicycle, he said.

Defense lawyer Martin Fein said there's no evidence directly tying his client to the murder, and one fact that suggests the killer was someone else.

"After this complete homicide investigation ... you are not going to hear a single piece of physical evidence in this case that implicates Munawar Toha," Fein said. He said DNA left on the tape that was used to bind the victim's body did not belong to Toha.

In 2012, Toha was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder. Prosecutors said he tried to hire a hit man from jail to kill four witnesses in the murder case. The hit man turned out to be an undercover Fort Lauderdale police officer. Toha is serving a 30-year prison term for that crime.

Coleman made no mention of the conviction during opening statements.

[email protected], 954-356-4457, Twitter @SSCourts and @rolmeda

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