PUTRAJAYA: The Court of Appeal (CoA) set aside a man's death sentence by the High Court and replaced with 35 years' jail and 12 strokes of the rotan for murdering his girlfriend's six-year-old son in Perlis in 2018.
A three-member panel chaired by Justice Datuk Hadhariah Syed Ismail, who sat with Justices Datuk Azman Abdullah and Datuk Azmi Ariffin, made the unanimous decision.
Justice Azmi said the Kangar High Court trial judge did not err in its decision to convict the appellant, Noraizuwan Hamali, whose appeal has no merit.
"The conviction of the appellant under Section 302 of the Penal Code is safe to be upheld. Therefore, we dismissed his appeal against the conviction," he said.
On the sentence, Azmi said the court took into consideration the enforcement of the Abolition of Mandatory Death Penalty Act 2023.
"After looking into the appellant's mitigation, we unanimously found that it, in this case, does not justify the death penalty against him.
"Therefore, the death sentence meted out by the High Court is set aside and replaced with 35 years' jail from the date of his arrest on April 19, 2018 and 12 strokes of the rotan," he said in the judgment dated yesterday which was uploaded on the judiciary's website.
Noraizuwan was accused of murdering Muhammad Rayyan Hidayat Hairil Khan on April 18, 2018 between 3.45pm and 12.10am at a house in Kampung Jejawi in Kangar.
At the end of the defence case on Jan 21, 2022, the High Court judge had found him guilty as charged and handed down the sentence.
Dissatisfied, Noraizuwan filed a notice of appeal to the CoA.
Justice Azmi said based on the entire evidence, it was clear that Noraizuwan's defence that the boy had fallen twice, at the playground and in the toilet where he had hit a pail, were lies.
"It was purely plain denial that did not raise any reasonable doubt in the prosecution's case.
"The lies of the appellant had strengthened the evidence of the prosecution's case," he said.
On April 19, 2018 at about 12.10am, Tuanku Fauziah Hospital emergency department's Dr Koo Shao Chang performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation and intubated Rayyan who was brought in unconscious but failed to save him.
Dr Koo's examination on Rayyan found bruises on his brows and eyes, under his chin, on his stomach and arms as well as blood stains on his eyes.
Pathologist Dr Mohd Suhani Mohd Noor's (SP6) post mortem results showed at least 47 injuries on Rayyan and confirmed that the cause of death was blunt force trauma to the abdomen.
SP6 had stated that the patterns of injuries on the boy could be categorised as non-accidental and it was not caused by a fall.
"SP6 estimated that the deceased had died before he arrived in the hospital and the new injuries were inflicted within two hours.
"SP6 visited the house to verify claims of the boy sustaining bruises after falling on a pail in the toilet but no evidence was found," said Justice Azmi.
The mother of the deceased had known Noraizuwan for eight months and they rented the house together.
On the night of the boy's death, Noraizuwan went to fetch the mother from her workplace, claiming that the deceased had a stomach ache after eating at the kindergarten.
While on the way home, he had told the mother that "she should not be angry if anything happened to her son."
Upon arrival at home at about 11.55pm, she found the deceased lying down motionless and covered in a blanket before she rushed him on a motorcycle to the hospital where he was declared dead.
ends/.