MALAYSIA. COURT AFFIRMS DEATH FOR THREE

former bus driver Hanafi Mat Hassan, 37, failed to overturn his death sentence for the murder of a 24-year-old female computer engineer.
The Court of Appeal in Malaysia affirmed the decision of the Shah Alam High Court, which found him guilty of murdering Noor Suzaily Mukhtar on October 7, 2000.
He was also convicted of raping the victim. For this offence he was sentenced to the maximum 20 years' jail and 12 strokes of the rotan. The jail sentence was to run from the date of the arrest, October 10, 2000. While ordering the death sentence and the jail term to run concurrently, the judge ordered that the death sentence take precedence. Meanwhile, the same panel of judges also upheld the decision of the High Court in Johor Baru which on October 30, 2001 sentenced two men to death for murdering a freshwater fish breeder. Lee Ah Seng, 27, and Lee Kwai Heong, 40, (not related) were found guilty of committing the offence on Sanip Leham, 50. The two committed the offence, together with two others still at large, at a disused pond in Jalan Sungai Rengit, Kota Tinggi, Johor, on October 30, 1998.