MALAYSIA: MAN GETS DEATH FOR MURDER OF GIRLFRIEND IN HOTEL ROOM

a married shipping agent was sentenced to death by the Shah Alam High Court in Malaysia for the murder of his girlfriend. On February 2, 2002, forwarding agent Rusman Sulaiman, 42, picked up his girlfriend, shipping officer Sheeren Liao Ee, 36, from the Klang commuter station and the two spent a night in a Klang hotel booked in her name. The next day, the two quarrelled because Liao wanted him to divorce his wife. Rusman slapped her and she fell on the bed in the hotel room. He then twisted a towel around her neck and pressed a pillow on her face for several minutes. Thinking Liao had died, Rusman called his wife and asked her to get petrol. Rusman poured it over the hotel bed and set it alight. He took Liao’s handbag, her three rings, a cell phone, an earring, cosmetics and bank cards. He threw her hangbag into a drain in Jalan Kapar, near a palm oil plantation. A few days later, he sold her jewellery, including her bangle, at a shop in Jalan Loke Yew for RM647. Rusman stated this part of story in his cautioned statement which the prosecution tendered to the court as additional evidence to support their case. In the statement, Rusman also admitted that he had twice planned to murder her by strangling her and burning her in a hotel room. Justice Muhamad Ideres Muhamad Rapee found Rusman failed to raise any doubt into the prosecution’s case and found him guilty of murder.