MALAYSIA: FEDERAL COURT QUASHES MAN'S DEATH SENTENCE

a Singaporean thanked three Malaysian Federal Court judges for sentencing him to 18 years' jail for shooting a 12 year old girl seven years ago. He was sentenced to death by the High Court, the decision being upheld by the Court of Appeal. The court found the prosecution did not prove that Low Soo Song, 56, was involved in the robbery. Judge Tan Sri Richard Malanjum, who sat with Datuk Nik Hashim Nik Abdul Rahman and Datuk Hashim Yusof ordered that his sentence begin from October 13, 2001, when he was arrested in Bangkok. Low was on Death Row for almost five years after the High Court in Penang found him guilty of discharging a bullet from a gun during the robbery. Low, a former secondhand goods dealer, had eight previous convictions in Singapore, ranging from armed robbery to possession of firearms over a 20-year period from 1972. Low was charged with discharging a firearm in the course of a robbery at the girl's house in Bertam Estate, Kepala Batas, Penang, on March 7, 2001.