G
Gan Ning
Guest
M'sian teens jailed for murder in school
AP
Published Nov 16 2010
The Malaysian High Court has sentenced three teenagers to indefinite imprisonment for beating their classmate to death in a boarding school hazing incident, an official said on Tuesday.
The court convicted the boys on Monday of murdering their classmate in 2007 at a school in Sarawak, a court official said on condition of anonymity, citing protocol. A murder conviction carries a mandatory penalty of death by hanging for adults.
However, because the three were 16-year-old minors when they committed the crime, they were sentenced to be imprisoned "at the pleasure of the king," which means they are imprisoned indefinitely but can be released if they receive a pardon from the country's constitutional monarch.
There are no guidelines for how long such sentences should last. The killed boy, Matheus Mering August, also then 16, had been at the boarding school for less than a week when he was found unconscious by school supervisors. Prosecutors said he died of internal injuries after being punched and kicked.
Cases of hazing at Malaysian boarding schools and military colleges occasionally occur and have sparked repeated calls for stronger enforcement of anti-bullying guidelines at those institutions.
