SANDAKAN: A Filipino labourer was sentenced to 32 years in jail and ordered given 12 strokes of the cane by the High Court here Monday for murdering his fellow countryman, five years ago.
Emar F Ramirez, 25, was found guilty and convicted of murdering Hendry Barcelona, 19, on July 22, 2020, at 1am, at a shared house in Ladang Sabang Maju, IJM Sugut, Beluran.
The offence under Section 302 of the Penal Code carries a sentence of either the death penalty or imprisonment for not less than 30 years but not exceeding 40 years, and if not sentenced to death, shall be punished with whipping of not less than 12 strokes for male convicts below 50 years of age, on conviction.
window.googletag = window.googletag || {cmd: []};googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.defineSlot('/22826383987/dailyexpress_inline', [1, 1], 'gpt-passback').addService(googletag.pubads());googletag.enableServices();googletag.display('gpt-passback');});Emar was ordered to serve the sentence from the date of his arrest on Aug 16, 2020 and ordered referred to the Immigration Department thereafter as he is not a Malaysian national.
High Court Judicial Commissioner Saiful Azian Mokhtar, in delivering his decision at the end of the defence case, found that the prosecution had proven its case against the accused beyond reasonable doubt for the murder of Hendry.
The court also found that the accused had not established his defence of grave and sudden provocation on a balance of probabilities and had not cast reasonable doubt on the prosecution’s case in any other respect, said Saiful in convicting Emar on the charge against him.
Counsel Datuk Ram Singh, representing Emar, in mitigation, submitted, among others that the accused had been detained since Aug 16, 2020 and was a first offender and that it was not a premeditated killing, and gave full cooperation to the police during the investigation throughout his detention.
He was remorseful and regretted such actions that only happened fast and without much thinking, as he could not control his emotion, said Ram.
Ram applied for the mandatory death sentence to be commuted to one of life imprisonment under the amendment to Section 302 of the Penal Code, through Section 34 of the Abolishment of Death Penalty Mandatory Act 2023, which gave discretion to the court to determine the appropriate sentence to the accused – life imprisonment for a term of 30 years and whipping.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Risal Abd Fikkah submitted that in the event the Court is to exercise its discretion to impose custodial sentence instead of death sentence, the trend of sentencing for cases where the cause of death is almost similar to their case was 30 to 39 years of imprisonment and 12 strokes of whipping.
Emar, who was the sole defence witness, gave sworn evidence in his defence.
