PUTRAJAYA: Khairul Izaini Khairuddin, better known as "Boy Tiger", was spared the death sentence and will serve 35 years in jail from the date of his arrest and caned 12 times for murdering his stepson, 3, in 2018.
The Court of Appeal's three-judge panel, led by Datuk Vazeer Alam Mydin Meera, had unanimously dismissed Khairul's appeal to set aside the High Court's conviction and sentence against him and for him to be released on grounds of insanity.
Vazeer, who sat with Datuk Ahmad Zaidi Ibrahim and Datuk Azmi Ariffin, said the appeal was meritless and the trial judge did not err in convicting the accused due to overwhelming evidence that the accused had murdered Muhammad Qairil Aqmal Abdul Hakim.
Zaidi, who read the broad grounds of judgment, said the conviction was safe and there was no need to disturb the findings that the accused had physically assaulted the deceased because of his temper, and not insanity.
He said Khairul's wife was an eyewitness to the attacks on her son, whom she said was repeatedly beaten, stepped on, strangled and thrown against the wall until his head became bloody.
He said the wife was unable to stop Khairul, now 37, from his acts as she was heavily pregnant and she too was beaten by him.
"He attacked and physically hurt the deceased as he was angry with him for disturbing his step-sibling, who is his and his wife's biological child.
"The attacks stopped only when the deceased became motionless and there was blood on his head due to the severe blows.
"The accused took the deceased to a private clinic and told the doctor that the boy had been injured in a fall in the toilet.
"The doctor told him to take the deceased to a hospital, where he was certified dead.
"The post-mortem confirmed there were many injuries on the body and head of the deceased.
"There were internal injuries, torn pancreas, and cracked and broken bones on his skull.
"It was confirmed that the injuries on the deceased's head were the cause of his death."
The trial judge, he said, found that the accused had failed to prove his defence of insanity at the time of incident, despite claims that he was a psychiatric patient at Ampang Hospital and Hospital Bahagia Ulu Kinta and had stopped taking his medications and unaware of the consequences.
Zaidi said a medical officer had certified that the accused was aware of his actions on the deceased at the time of the incident, and that evidence failed to be debunked.
"The wife had said the accused stopped beating the deceased when he bled and was motionless and took him to the clinic.
"He told the doctor that the deceased's injuries were due to a fall in the toilet.
"To us, the action and behaviour of the accused clashed with someone who is insane. Instead, it is consistent with someone who is sane.
he was insane and was not alert with what he had done, why did he stop assaulting the deceased and took him to the clinic and hospital?
"Someone who is insane would not have done what he did.
"Someone who is insane would not know that a clinic and hospital are places to seek medical treatment. He knew what he had done was against the law.
"He had beaten up the deceased not because he was insane, but because of his hot temper.
"If he was insane, he would not have tried to conceal the truth. Why did he lie and hide the cause of the boy's death?"
On Nov 22,2018, Khairul Izaini, then 31, was charged with the murder of Muhammad Qairil Aqmal, at the living room of a house in Taman Bukit Indah, Ampang.
He fled after being informed of the death but was arrested at Kajang Hospital on Nov 12 when he visited his wife, who was being treated after giving birth to a boy.