Court affirms trio's 35-year jail term for kidnap, murder 10 years ago
PUTRAJAYA : The Federal Court has upheld the 35-year prison sentence against a former clerk and two others for the kidnapping and murder of businesswoman Balveer Kaur, whose body was dumped from the Second Penang Bridge 10 years ago.
A three-member bench chaired by acting Chief Justice Hasnah Hashim dismissed the appeals by A Malarvili, 33, J Sunil Singh, 38, and C Kavin Mukilan, 31, against their conviction and sentence.
Hasnah said the apex court had no reason to disturb the concurrent findings of facts made by the courts below.
'We are also satisfied that the trial judge did not commit any error, nor was there a miscarriage of justice,' she said.
The bench dismissed the prosecution's cross-appeal to restore the death sentence imposed by the High Court on the three appellants.
'We have no hesitation in dismissing the appeals before us. We hereby confirm the conviction and sentence,' she said.
Also on the panel hearing the appeal were Justices Abu Bakar Jais and Hanipah Farikullah.
Sunil, a former employee of Balveer, and Kavin were also sentenced to be whipped 12 times as they were below 50 years of age.
The trio were sentenced to another 35 years for kidnapping to obtain a ransom from Balveer's family, with Sunil and Kavin sentenced to an additional three lashes of the rotan.
Malarvili was spared a whipping as the law prohibits such punishments on female offenders.
The jail terms were ordered to commence from the date of their arrest, and will run concurrently, meaning that the trio will serve 35 years calculated from Feb 15, 2015.
On Dec 27, 2018, trial judge Zulkifli Bakar convicted the three accused and sentenced them to death for both offences.
On March 5 last year, the Court of Appeal upheld the conviction but substituted the capital punishment with jail time following a plea by their lawyers.
Lawyers Amer Hamzah Arshad represented Sunil, Jasmine Cheong appeared for Malarvili, and M Visvanathan acted for Kavin.
Deputy public prosecutor How May Ling and Iznina Hanim Hashim appeared for the prosecution.
The trio were jointly charged with the common intention of kidnapping Balveer at a construction site near Sunway Pyramid in Petaling Jaya, Selangor, on Feb 13, 2015.
They were also charged with murdering her at about 3.55am the following day.
Balveer, who was 60 at the time of the incident, was involved in a marble and granite business with her husband, Amarjit Singh.
Evidence was led during trial that the trio had intentionally caused her death by suffocating her before throwing her body into the sea.
A pathologist confirmed that Balveer died of suffocation and not drowning as claimed by the defence.
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