KUALA LUMPUR: A High Court judicial commissioner was in tears when telling a sobbing jobless man that his act of causing the death of an elderly female neighbour was akin to killing his own mother.
As the sound of crying rang across the courtroom today, judicial commissioner Datuk Mohamad Shariff Abu Samah was wiping his eyes when questioning accused Rasid Osias, who looked down with his hands covering his face.
"She was your neighbour. An elderly woman. It was like killing your own mother," said Shariff as Rasid wept quietly in the dock during proceedings involving the killing of Swa Kim Chia @ Chua Ah May, 71.
Rasid, 36, had pleaded guilty to causing the death of Swa at her flat unit at Jalan Union, off Jalan Sentul here, at 6.30pm on July 23, 2014. He was handed a 20-year jail term today.
According to case facts admitted by Rasid during proceedings, Rasid had visited Swa, who was babysitting her then four-year-old granddaughter, on the pretext of wanting to borrow her pail.
Having been allowed into her house, Rasid took out his hidden knife and grabbed Swa by the neck when her back was turned while she was bending down to pick up her pail in her bathroom.
She screamed and he stabbed her seven times as they struggled. His hands wet with blood, he left the unit while witnessed by Swa's neighbour Tai Shir Ling.
Rasid was arrested by police when he later returned to the scene of the crime. On July 31, 2014 at the Magistrate's Court, he was charged with the murder of Swa, and his case was then transferred to the High Court.
However in the midst of the murder trial today, Rasid pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of culpable homicide not amounting to murder, which carried a maximum 30-year custodial term. The original murder charge had carried a mandatory death sentence.
During submission for a deterrent sentence, deputy public prosecutor Nurakmal Farhan Aziz told the court that the premeditated crime was cruel in nature as Rasid had taken advantage of Swa, whom had been his neighbour for four years.
Shariff ordered Rasid to serve his custodial sentence from the date of his arrest on July 23, 2014. Counsel Kitson Foong acted for Rasid.