PUTRAJAYA: A former owner of a workshop has been sentenced to 17 years in jail by the Court of Appeal for culpable homicide not amounting to murder of his girlfriend’s two-year-old son almost 10 years ago.
Mohd Hisham Mat Yunus, 52, was initially convicted and sentenced to death by the High Court for murdering Muhamad Umar Haiqal Mohd Hazlee.
His lawyer Datuk Hisyam Teh Poh Teik today informed the three-member panel of judges led by Justice Datuk Seri Kamaludin Md Said that the Attorney-General’s Chambers accepted his client’s representation for the charge to be reduced to culpable homicide not amounting to murder.
He asked the court to set aside Mohd Hisham’s murder conviction under Section 302 of the Penal Code and substitute it with a conviction under Section 304 (a) for culpable homicide not amounting to murder.
Deputy public prosecutor Ng Siew Wee confirmed to the court that Mohd Hisham’s representation was accepted.
Justice Kamaludin, who presided with Justices Datuk Hadhariah Syed Ismail and Datuk Ahmad Zaidi Ibrahim, then set aside Mohd Hisham’s conviction for murder and substituted it with culpable homicide not amounting to murder and imposed the 17-year imprisonment.
Justice Kamaludin ordered Mohd Hisham to begin his jail sentence from the date of his arrest on June 24, 2013.
He told Mohd Hisham that he should consider himself very lucky as he had been spared the death sentence.
Mohd Hisham, who has three wives and five children, was found guilty and sentenced to death by the High Court on Feb 22, 2019, for killing the child in a room at the Commonwealth Forest Park & Resort, KM23, Jalan Kuala Lumpur-Rawang, Selangor between 2 pm on May 9, 2013 and 4.30 am on June 2, 2013.
The facts of the case revealed that the child’s mother, a divorcee, had befriended Mohd Hisham through the social media platform. The woman has another child who was four years old in 2013.
The boy’s mother gave evidence in the High Court that during a stay in the hotel, Mohd Hisyam did not like her having a bath with the boy together as he said it was against Islamic religious teachings and he took over that duty.
The mother testified that she heard her son crying when Mohd Hisham bathed him in the bathroom, which was locked. She also said Mohd Hisham had soaked her son in a pail filled with water and ice and left him alone all night in the bathroom.
She said his reason for doing so was to get rid of evil spirits in the child’s body.
The mother said that on June 2, 2013, she saw Mohd Hisham giving cardiopulmonary resuscitation on her son, who was lying motionless. Later that day, the woman, her daughter and Mohd Hisham took the body in a car for burial in a jungle at Bukit Brinchang, Cameron Highlands.
The mother lodged a police report about her son’s death after she and her daughter escaped from the hotel room when Mohd Hisham went shopping. Mohd Hisham was subsequently arrested and led police to the boy’s body.
Lawyers Badrul Hisham Sani and Low Wei Loke represented Mohd Hisham. – BERNAMA
