By Free Malaysia Today
Three friends were today spared the death sentence after the Court of Appeal reduced their charges from murder to culpable homicide.
A panel of three judges unanimously set aside the conviction of B. Davendran, 30, K. Neelamegan, 29, and P. Hurisudhan, 32, under section 302 of the Penal Code.
The trio were then convicted under section 304(a) of the code.
“After taking into account the submissions by the lawyers and the prosecution, we sentenced the first appellant (Davendran) to 12 years in prison, while the second (Neelamegan) and third (Hurisudhan) appellants are each sentenced to 10 years in prison.
“They are to serve the jail sentence from the date of their arrest,” said Justice Vazeer Alam Mydin Meera, sitting with Justices Azman Abdullah and Azmi Ariffin.
Davendran was arrested on June 18, 2018, while Neelamegan and Hurisudhan were arrested on June 14, 2018.
Earlier, Azmi, who also read out part of the judgment, said the trial judge in the High Court had failed to delve deeply into the provisions under section 299 of the Penal Code, which deals with the offence of culpable homicide.
“If the facts in the evidence submitted in this case are refined and given sufficient consideration, we are confident that the trial judge would have reached a different decision, which was lowering the charge from section 300 of the Penal Code, which can be punished under section 302 of the Penal Code, to section 299 of the Penal Code, which can be punished under section 304(a) of the same law,” he said.
He said the trial judge’s failure to amend the charge prejudiced the three appellants, which should be corrected by the Court of Appeal to ensure that they suffer no injustice.
“Accordingly, this court allows the appeal of the three appellants to set aside section 302 of the Penal Code and replace it with conviction under section 304(a) of the Penal Code,” said Azmi.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Fuad Aziz prosecuted, while lawyer Gurubachan S. Johal represented Davendran. Neelamegan and Hurisudhan were represented by lawyers Rajpal Singh and Amer Hamzah Arshad respectively.
The three men were sentenced to death by the Kuala Lumpur High Court on Oct 15, 2021 for causing the death of a 58-year-old man at the Wangsa Maju public housing at 8pm, on April 18, 2018.
