Trio S Sentence For Senior Citizen S Murder Commuted To 35 Years

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The Federal Court is hearing applications under a recent law enacted by Parliament which allows those on death row to seek a review of their sentence.PUTRAJAYA: Three men, who were on death row for the murder of a senior citizen 13 years ago, had their death sentences substituted with a 35-year jail term today.
A five-member apex court review panel led by Chief Judge of Malaya Zabidin Diah ordered the terms of S Ranjitkumar, 37, S Gobi, 42, and E Sangkar, 41, to begin on the day of their respective arrests in 2010 and 2011.
The court also ordered that they be given 12 strokes of the rotan each.
Also on the panel hearing the applications were Justices Mary Lim, Harmindar Singh Dhaliwal, Nordin Hassan and Abu Bakar Jais.
An amendment to the law by Parliament earlier this year abolished the mandatory death penalty and now gives judges the alternative of imposing a jail term of between 30 and 40 years for those convicted of murder.
The trio had brought their review under the Revision of the Sentence of Death and Imprisonment for Natural Life (Temporary Jurisdiction of the Federal Court) Act 2023 enacted to allow those already on death row to seek a review of their sentence.
The Federal Court had on March 23, 2017, affirmed the trio’s conviction and death sentence for killing P Kannayah, 62, outside his apartment in Bukit Ampang Permai in Ampang, Selangor, at 10.30pm on Aug 11, 2010.
Earlier today, counsel M Manoharan, Rajit Singh and Azamuddin Abdul Aziz, who represented Ranjitkumar, Gobi and Sangkar respectively, urged the court to exercise its discretion and sentence their clients to a jail term.
However, deputy public prosecutor K Mangai submitted that the death penalty should be maintained due to injuries inflicted on the victim.
She said Kannayah had come out of his house to shield his son from an attack by the three men.
“Instead, the three, who were armed with parangs, inflicted 22 incisive wounds on the victim. They showed no mercy to the elderly man,” she said.
In the alternative, she said the court should impose a jail term of between 35 and 40 years if it was minded to commute the sentence.
Reduced charge for cowherd
In another case, a three-member Federal Court bench, comprising Zabidin, Lim and Harmindar, sentenced a cowherd to 15 years’ jail after he pleaded guilty to an amended charge of committing culpable homicide not amounting to murder.
The prosecution offered Siddiq Abdullah, 46, the reduced charge today after the bench ruled that the ingredients for murder had not been satisfied.
Siddiq’s murder conviction imposed by the High Court, and later affirmed by the Court of Appeal earlier this year, was set aside.
Zabidin, who chaired the panel, ordered Siddiq’s jail term to begin on March 15, 2017, the date of his arrest.
He had killed S Puspa Nathan with a piece of wood behind a Chinese temple near the Bestari Jaya police station in Kuala Selangor between 12.30am and 6.15am on March 15, 2017.
Lawyer Baljit Singh represented Siddiq, while Khushairy Ibrahim appeared for the prosecution. - FMT

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