Main Crimes

Newspaper Article: Higher Jail Term For Farmhands - Source of Article The Star

SHAH LAM: Two farmhands convicted of disposing evidence in the murder of cosmetics millionaire Datuk Sosilawati Lawiya and three others have been slapped with higher jail terms – 20 years each.

High Court Justice Mohtarudin Baki ruled that a Telok Datok magistrate’s court had erred in handing down a seven-year jail term earlier on K. Sarawanan, 20, and U. Suresh, 27.

 

Off to jail: Sarawanan (second from left) and Suresh being

escorted out of the Shah Alam High Court

yesterday. — Bernama

 

The court had earlier allowed a judicial review application challenging the magistrate’s sentence before amending the seven-year jail term to five on each of the four counts. He ordered the sentence to run consecutively from the date of arrest.

Justice Mohtarudin said that any right-thinking person would agree that a five-year imprisonment was “manifestly inadequate” considering the gravity of the offences.
The two men had pleaded guilty on Oct 15 last year to four counts of disposing of evidence of the murder under Section 201 of the Penal Code.

Sarawanan was charged with burning the bodies of Sosilawati, 47, CIMB bank officer Noorhisham Mohammad, 38, lawyer Ahmad Kamil Abdul Karim, 32, and driver Kamaruddin Shamsuddin, 44, while Suresh was charged with disposing of the ashes.
They were among eight people arrested by police between Sept 9 and 12, 2010, in connection with the disappearance of Sosilawati and three others on Aug 30, 2010.
Magistrate Hurman Hussain had sentenced them to seven years in jail each for the four charges, which were to run concurrently.

The court also dismissed Sarawanan’s appeal for his conviction to be overturned after finding that there was no miscarriage of justice.
Depuy public prosecutors Saiful Edris Zainuddin and Idham Abd Ghani prosecuted while the two accused were represented by lawyer A.S. Dhaliwal.

Murders
Murders are very offensive to innocent people out there who works hard to live life but ends up killed for someone else' survival. Most criminals murder when they have no other choice. Some avenge on people who betrayed them. Or murder only because of jealousy. Losing a life is a big thing, we only get ONE. When someone's murdered, there's no way of bringing them back. Accidents happen, when someone murders the wrong person; or when someone wants to injure someone badly but accidentally caused death.

Murderers should be set on death penalty as return for taking a life away. Death penalty should take place most often in over populated countries, or very serious crimes like "Murder".

Statistics
As for murder, the number of incidents has been fluctuating between 500 to 600 cases per year, while year 2006 recorded the highest number: 604 cases.
Next, rape cases are seeing a steady increment from year 2000: 1210 cases in 2000 to 2435 cases in year 2006, double the cases in 6 years period.
The robbery done by single and unarmed person is seeing a drastic increase: a jump of around 12 000 cases in year 2000 to about 18 000 cases in year 2006.