Rotan plus death for rape-murder
Published on: Thursday, February 24, 2005
SHAH ALAM: Aircraft cabin cleaning supervisor Ahmad Najib Aris was sentenced to death by the High Court here Wednesday for murdering US-based IT analyst Canny Ong Lay Kian in June 2003.
Ahmad Najib, 29, was also sentenced to the maximum 20 years' jail and ordered to be given 10 strokes of the rotan for raping Ong. Justice Datuk Muhamad Ideres Muhamad Rapee ordered the jail term to commence from June 20 2003, the day he was arrested.
Ahmad Najib was found guilty of raping and murdering Ong, 28, at Km 11.2, Jalan Klang Lama, here, between 1am and 5am on June 14, 2003.
Ahmad Najib appeared calm when Justice Muhamad Ideres passed the sentence.
Earlier, he was seen to be mumbling to himself.
After the proceedings, Ahmad Najib's wife, Zaharah Suppian Suppiah, wiped his tears. He was then already in handcuffs.
"What's decided by the judge that's the outcome. I consider everything as a test for me...a test is meant as a challenge. A test to me is to gauge one's patience. I don't have any fear (of death), I feel perfectly normal. If there is an occasion for us to meet, we'll meet again.
This is what I have expected," he said.
The trial lasted 46 days beginning on Sept 15, 2003 and ended May 20 last year when the prosecution closed its case.
The trial, which was given wide publicity, had horrified the nation with its tales of abduction, rape, murder and the dumping of the body into a manhole and burning it.
The prosecution called 44 witnesses, including Ong's parents, and at the end of the prosecution's case, the judge ordered Ahmad Najib to make his defence.
However, Ahmad Najib stunned everyone when he chose to remain silent.
Among the evidence adduced was that on the state of Ong's charred remains which were found buried under two cement-filled tyres in a manhole measuring 1x1x1 metre four days after she was abducted from a basement car park in Bangsar Shopping Complex (BSC).
In his judgement, Justice Muhamad Ideres said that the prosecution had established a prima facie case against Ahmad Najib.
He said the only alternative for him was to find him guilty and convict him of both charges of rape and murder, citing a Federal Court ruling that when a prima facie case had been established against an accused person and he chose to remain silent, he must be convicted.
In mitigation, defence counsel Mohamed Haniff Khatri Abdulla said Ahmad Najib has two children, aged two and three, and has to take care of his parents who are ill as well as his younger siblings.
He said Ahmad Najib only studied up to Form Three as he had to support his family who is not well-to-do. He worked as a labourer and a general worker in Muar, his hometown, before coming to Kuala Lumpur.
His wife, he said, works as a clerk in a finance company.
Furthermore, he said, Ahmad Najib is a first offender, Deputy Public Prosecutor Salehuddin Saidin said that for the offence of murder, the mandatory death sentence should be imposed.
As for the offence of rape, he said, the court should impose the maximum sentence based on the evidence adduced in court.
During the trial, Ong's mother, Pearley Visvanathan, testified that her daughter did not return after she went to take a parking ticket that she had left in her Proton Tiara car at the basement car park of the complex.
A policeman, L/Kpl S. Ravichandran, testified that Ong gave distress signals to him and also prayer gestures pointing to Ahmad Najib when he inspected the car in which she and Ahmad Najib was in.
A clerk, Aminah Isahak, who also saw Ong and Ahmad Najib in a Proton Tiara parked near the Leisure Commerce Square building the night she went missing, told the court that Ong, in a sexy black net dress, was giving facial distress signals.
She also testified that although Ong appeared scared, she refused to come out of the car when Ahmad Najib was attending to a punctured tyre.
Azizam Ismail, a former technician who saw the car parked along Jalan Klang Lama, testified that he saw a topless woman stretched across the back seat of a Proton Tiara when he stopped to "take a leak" on the way back to his office in Bukit Lanjan, Damansara.
He said he saw Ahmad Najib with Ong in the car and thought that they were making love.
Former Petaling Jaya Magistrate Muhamad Rushdan Mohamd testified that Ahmad Najib's confession was voluntary and sincere as he said that nobody forced, threatened, coerced, induced or promised him anything into confessing.
The court also admitted Ahmad Najib's confession in which he confessed having sexual intercourse with Ong and then stabbing her twice in the stomach before leaving her to bleed to death in the manhole.
In the confession, Ahmad Najib also told the Ong he would burn the body. He said (in the statement) that the gag on Ong's mouth came off and she asked him to leave her alone (in the manhole). He said Ong told him that she was going to heaven and he left her and closed the manhole with planks.
Forensic pathologist Prof. Dr Kasinathan Nadesan said Ong was stabbed and was bleeding heavily and that she was then strangled with a piece of cloth that resembled a crepe bandage before her body was burnt.
Head of the Serology/DNA Section of the Forensics Division of the Petaling Jaya Chemistry Department, J. Primulapathi, testified that the bloodstains on the jeans belonging to Ahmad Najib was that of Ong's.
Meanwhile, Pearly Visvanathan, 58, said even though the death sentence had been imposed on Ahmad Najib, it would not bring her daughter back.
"...I'm not saying that I'm happy because I sympathise with Ahmad Najib's family...this is all God's will...it's just that Canny was unfortunate to be at the wrong place at the wrong time...life must go on," she said after the proceedings, accompanied by her sister and niece.
Asked about her husband, Ong Bee Jeng, 65, who was absent, she said her husband still could not accept the fact that their daughter was gone, adding that she hoped Canny's husband, Brendan, would remarry and start a new life.
"I hope her husband will get married again...he has to move on..." she said. Salehuddin, met by reporters, said that the prosecution was happy with the court's decision.
"This, however, is not the final decision and we are prepared to face the appeal filed by the defence," said Salehuddin, assisted by DPPs Noorin Badaruddin and Kwan Li Sa.
Mohamed Hanif, met later, said the defence would file an appeal in the Court of Appeal soon.
"The right to remain silent was the best strategy. I stand by it. Ahmad Najib stands by it," he said when asked whether the move by the defence to opt to remain silent when Ahmad Najib was called to enter his defence would have an effect in the appeal.
Meanwhile, Ahmad Najib's mother, who was present during the proceedings, was ushered out of the courtroom by relatives as soon as sentence was passed.
She and Zaharah declined any comment when met by reporters. - Bernama
