The Palace of Justice building, which houses Malaysia’s Court of Appeal and Federal Court, in Putrajaya

MALAYSIA: FEDERAL COURT COMMUTES MAN'S DEATH SENTENCE TO 38 YEARS JAIL FOR MURDERING TRANSVESTITE

July 10, 2024:

A former scrap metal dealer’s death sentence for killing a transvestite 15 years ago has been commuted to 38 years in jail by the Federal Court, Bernama reported on July 4, 2024.
A three-judge panel comprising Chief Justice Tun Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat and Federal Court judges Datuk Nordin Hassan and Datuk Abu Bakar Jais allowed V. Raja’s review application under the Revision of Sentence of Death and Imprisonment for Natural Life (Temporary Jurisdiction of the Federal Court) Act 2023.
Justice Tengku Maimun ordered Raja's prison sentence to begin from the date of his arrest on May 23, 2010, and also imposed 12 strokes of caning.
Raja, 35, was found guilty by the High Court in 2012 for killing M. Kanan, 42, at a flood retention pond in Lorong Air Jernih, Setapak, Kuala Lumpur between 1am and 2am on Aug 24, 2009.
He failed in his appeals to overturn his conviction and death sentence at the Court of Appeal in 2013 and Federal Court in 2015.
Earlier, Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Zulkpli Abdullah urged the court to uphold the death sentence, citing the extremely brutal nature of the murder and its apparent lack of motive based on the facts of the case.
He said on the night of the murder, Raja and a group of his friends went in a van to the location of the deceased.
He said the deceased, who was a transvestite and worked as a prostitute, was forced to enter the van and have sexual intercourse with Raja, who later stabbed him with a knife.
Raja’s lawyer T. Vijayandran had earlier pleaded for the court to give his client a chance to have his death sentence commuted to life imprisonment.