Malaysian man sentenced to death for killing two British students ‘to test his strength’
Defendant licked victims' blood after stabbing them to death for sport, prosecutor says
PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 31 March, 2015, 3:01pm
UPDATED : Tuesday, 31 March, 2015, 9:16pm
AP and AFP in Kuala Lumpur
Zulkipli Abdullah (left) is escorted to the high court in Sarawak. He was found guilty of stabbing two foreigners dead. Photo: Reuters
A Malaysian court convicted and sentenced today a local fishmonger to death by hanging for the murder of two British medical students last year on Borneo Island.
Zulkipli Abdullah, 24, was found guilty of stabbing to death Neil Dalton and Aidan Brunger in the city of Kuching, in Sarawak state, last August after an argument in a bar.
The two victims, both 22 years old, were students from Britain’s Newcastle University who were on a six-week work placement with a local hospital in the city.
The two were found dead, with stab wounds, on the morning of August 6 – just two days before their work placement at the hospital was due to end.
During the trial, Zulkipli had said he was involved in a fight with the Britons, but denied killing them, according to Malaysian media reports.
A foreign tourist places flowers at the murder scene of two British students in Kuching, a day after the stabbing. Photo: EPA
Prosecutor Muhamad Iskandar said Zulkipli made an unsworn statement from the dock during his defence, in which the fishmonger told the court he and two of his friends were involved in the fight.
Zulkiple said he punched one of the British students, but denied stabbing them to death with a knife. Five Malaysian men were later arrested but only Zulkipli was charged.
However, Iskandar said there was no gang fight and that the attack on the Britons was unprovoked.
The two men with Zulkipli testified for the prosecution and said that Zulkipli told them he wanted to “test his power” against bigger and taller foreigners, the prosecutor said.
After killing the Britons, he sniffed the blood on his hands and told his friends that “the blood of white men smells nice”, the prosecutor said.
Authorities found a folded knife at Zulkipli’s house, which matched the stab wounds on the Britons.
“He was found guilty. The judge accepted the testimonies of the prosecution witnesses,” Zulkipli’s lawyer Anthony Tai said, adding they would file an appeal.
“The court ruled that his defence was merely an afterthought. The defence failed to raise any reasonable doubts in the case,” Muhamad Iskandar said.
Violent crime against tourists and expatriates is generally rare in the Muslim-majority Southeast Asian country. But some recent incidents have sullied that image.
Malaysian police in June last year found the body of a 34-year-old British tourist on the resort island of Tioman. The case is still being investigated.
A month later, a court sentenced to death a Malaysian shopkeeper for the killing of a French female tourist in 2011, also on Tioman.
