06 November 2023 :

A welder escaped the gallows in Malaysia on November 6, 2023 after the Court of Appeal commuted the death sentence imposed on him by the High Court to 35 years in jail for killing a housewife.
The three-member bench comprising Justices Datuk Hadhariah Syed Ismail, Datuk See Mee Chun and Datuk Azmi Ariffin dismissed Lin Siek Hong’s appeal against his conviction.
Justice Hadhariah set aside the death sentence and said that the court is exercising its discretion to substitute the death sentence with 35 years in jail.
In the court’s decision, Justice Hadhariah said this was not a case of provocation, adding that Yap Choon Mooi was stabbed in her heart which showed that Lin had intention to kill.
She also said that there was no suppression of evidence by the prosecution.
Lin was spared the whipping as he was 54 years old.
Lin was found guilty by the High Court on February 17, last year, for killing Yap, 41, at Lorong Tengah in Kampung Terentang, Rawang, Selangor at about 6.45am on December 11, 2018.
His lawyer Lee Teong Hooi had earlier argued that his client was provoked by the deceased and that his client did not have the intention to kill her. He also said the prosecution had also failed to call a Chinese woman who saw the incident, to testify in the trial.
Deputy public prosecutor Parvin Hameedah Natchiar argued that there was no withholding of information by the prosecution as the deceased’s husband did not know the Chinese woman who had informed him that his wife had been stabbed.