Di balai itu, seorang saksi lain berkata bahawa dia nampak orang yang sama masuk ke lorong belakang.

Yes. Di balai itu means at/in that hall/station/building, and it has been moved to the front to set the scene first.

Malay word order is flexible enough that you could also say:

Seorang saksi lain berkata bahawa dia nampak orang yang sama masuk ke lorong belakang di balai itu.

But putting Di balai itu first sounds natural when the speaker wants to establish the location before telling what happened.

The comma shows this opening location phrase is being treated like a scene-setting phrase in English, like At that station, ...

Balai can mean different kinds of public buildings or halls depending on context. Common possibilities include:

• hall
• station
• public office/post

In real usage, you often see it in fixed expressions such as:

• balai polis = police station
• balai raya = community hall

By itself, balai is a bit broad, so the exact meaning depends on the wider context. In a sentence about a witness, many learners might imagine something like a station or official building, but the word itself does not force only one translation.

Because in Malay, demonstratives like ini and itu usually come after the noun.

So:

• balai itu = that hall/station
• orang itu = that person
• lorong itu = that lane/alley

This is a very common pattern and often feels reversed to English speakers.

Because orang is the classifier used for people.

Seorang is made from:

• se- = one
• orang = person classifier

So seorang saksi means a witness / one witness in the natural Malay way.

Compare:

• seorang guru = a teacher
• seorang lelaki = a man
• seorang saksi = a witness

You may sometimes hear satu in casual speech in some situations, but for a person, seorang is the standard and most natural choice.

In Malay, adjectives usually come after the noun, so:

• saksi lain = another witness / other witness

Here, seorang saksi lain most naturally means another witness.

This post-noun position is normal in Malay:

• rumah besar = big house
• kereta merah = red car
• saksi lain = other/another witness

Whether you translate it as another or other depends on the English context more than on a strict grammatical difference in Malay.

Bahawa means that in the sense of introducing a reported statement or clause.

So:

• berkata bahawa dia nampak... = said that he/she saw...

It is grammatical and common, especially in more careful, formal, or written Malay.

In everyday speech, bahawa is often omitted:

• seorang saksi lain berkata dia nampak...

That shorter version is also very natural.

So bahawa is not always necessary, but it helps make the sentence structure explicit.

It can mean either. Dia is gender-neutral in Malay.

So dia may be translated as:

• he
• she

depending on the context.

This means the sentence is slightly ambiguous unless the wider context makes it clear who dia refers to and whether that person is male or female.

Also, a learner may wonder whether dia refers to:

• the other witness, or
• someone already mentioned earlier

Malay often leaves that kind of thing to context.

Nampak often means see, be visible, or notice, depending on context. In everyday Malay, it is very commonly used for saw in a sentence like this.

So:

• dia nampak orang yang sama = he/she saw the same person

Melihat is also possible and can sound a bit more formal or neutral:

• dia melihat orang yang sama...

Very roughly:

• nampak = common, everyday, often natural in speech
• melihat = more formal or more explicitly to see

In this sentence, nampak sounds perfectly normal.

Orang yang sama means the same person.

Here, yang links the noun orang to the describing phrase sama. English speakers often expect just orang sama, but that is not the normal phrasing here.

So the pattern is:

• orang yang sama = the same person
• lelaki yang sama = the same man
• kereta yang sama = the same car

In many cases, yang works like a linker between a noun and a descriptive element. It often appears in relative-clause-like structures, but here you can simply learn yang sama as a very common pattern meaning the same after a noun.

Here it means person.

Orang can refer to:

• a person
• people / persons

The number is often understood from context.

In orang yang sama, the meaning is clearly singular in English: the same person. The phrase is pointing to one particular individual already known from the context.

Masuk means enter or go in. Ke marks movement to/toward/into a place.

So:

• masuk ke lorong belakang = went into the back alley

The ke helps show direction toward that location.

You may sometimes hear forms without ke in certain contexts, but masuk ke is very common and clear when talking about movement into a place.

Because belakang is describing lorong, and in Malay descriptive words usually come after the noun.

So:

• lorong belakang = back alley / rear lane
• pintu belakang = back door
• bahagian belakang = back part

English often puts the describing word first, but Malay usually puts it after the noun.

Malay verbs usually do not change form for tense the way English verbs do.

So:

• berkata can mean say/said
• nampak can mean see/saw
• masuk can mean enter/entered

Time is normally understood from:

• context
• time words
• the type of narrative

In this sentence, the event is understood as past because it is clearly part of a narrated report: a witness said that he/she saw someone go into the back alley.

If needed, Malay could make past time more explicit with words like:

• tadi = earlier / just now
• semalam = yesterday
• sudah / telah = already / past-completed sense

But they are not required here.

Malay does not have articles that work exactly like English a/an and the.

Instead, Malay uses other ways to show definiteness or reference, such as:

• seorang for a person
• itu for that / the one already known
• context

So in this sentence:

• seorang saksi lain naturally gives the idea of another witness
• orang yang sama naturally gives the idea of the same person
• lorong belakang can mean the back alley or a back alley, depending on context

English requires articles much more often than Malay does.