MALAYSIA: DUO SENTENCED TO DEATH OVER MURDER OF COLLEAGUE

Two men were given the death sentence by the High Court in Johor Baru after being found guilty of murdering a colleague in January 2013.
Judge Datuk Dr Sabirin Ja’afar made the decision after finding the defence failed to raise any reasonable doubts in the prosecution’s case.
“On the overall, the first and second accused were the last people seen with the victim. “Apart from that, the blood stains found on the carpet of a car belonging to the father of the first accused matched the blood specimen of the deceased. “In fact, the cigarette butts found at the murder scene also matched the DNA profile of the first accused, thus linking both accused with the murder even though they denied being there,” he said in his judgement. Moments after the court announced the decision, both the accused, S.P.  Rajnath, 29, and B. Marvin Kumar, 30, were seen surrounded by crying family members while the two accused appeared calm. Rajnath and Marvin were charged with murdering M. Mathan, 19, with machetes by the roadside of Jemaluang Recreational Park at KM22 of Jalan Mersing-Jemaluang-Kluang between 2am and  5am on January 4, 2013. The murder victim was found in the park with 180 wounds on the body by a policeman at 8.07am the same day. According to the statement made by the accused in a police report, the motive for the murder was because they were unhappy with the victim for revealing their secrets to other colleagues.
Rajnath and Marvin were charged under Section 302 of the Penal Code read together with Section 34 of the same code which provides for the mandatory death sentence upon conviction.      
During the trial, 18 prosecution witnesses and three defence witnesses were called to the stand including the parents of both accused, a pathologist, two police cameramen and the policeman who lodged the report. As soon as the judgement was pronounced today, both accused through their counsel filed appeals to the Court of Appeal. The prosecution was conducted by deputy public prosecutor Nor Iffa Zarilla Abd Rahman while the accused were represented by counsel A. Vasudevan and V. Rajagopal.