KUALA LUMPUR: Three men on death row escaped the noose after the Federal Court substituted the sentence with a 38-year jail term for killing Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) lecturer Bakarudin Busu 22 years ago.
The trio were Azizul Azual Mohamad Jailani, 40, former sales executive Sulkarnain Alias, 46, and former forklift driver, Noorman Ab Wahab, 45.
Bakarudin's semi-charred body was found in a drain in Subang Jaya. Evidence showed he was assaulted and slashed to death before he was burned.
A three-panel judge led by Datuk Zabariah Mohd Yusof had on April 2, ordered the men to be caned 12 times.
Zabariah, who sat with Datuk Nordin Hassan and Datuk Abdul Karim Abdul Jalil, made the unanimous decision to set aside the death penalty after allowing the sentence review.
The 38-year imprisonment for Azizul Azual starts from the date of his arrest on Feb 17, 2002, while it is from Feb 16, 2002, for Sulkarnain and Noorman.
The trio were sentenced to death by the Shah Alam High Court in 2009 for murdering Bakarudin, 35, at 9.30pm at SS19, Subang Jaya on Feb 12, 2002.
During the review proceedings, deputy public prosecutor How May Ling objected to the application on the grounds that Bakarudin was brutally killed as the petrol used had left 70 per cent burns on his body before he was dumped in the drain.
She said that the acts were pre-meditated when the three men brought along weapons with them when they met with Bakarudin earlier on the day of the incident.
"The victim was beaten up before he was stabbed and slashed with a sword which caused 13 wounds, including one that was 14 centimetres long on his head and had injured his brains," she said.
Azizul Azual, the first applicant, had played a significant role as he was responsible for bringing the weapon to the scene, apart from being the first person to attack Bakarudin by kicking him until he fell.
Sulkarnain, the second applicant, had arranged the meeting with Bakarudin with the help of his girlfriend.
He had strangled Bakarudin, slashed him several times, burned him with petrol, took his wallet and tried to withdraw money via an automated teller machine.
Noorman, the third applicant, had placed the sword on Bakarudin's neck and torched him with petrol.
Lawyers Abdul Rashid Ismail who appeared for Azizah Azual and Datuk C. Vignesh Kumar for Sulkarnain and Noorman, asked the court to consider that the trio were young offenders.
The lawyers asked the court to take into consideration that Bakarudin had earlier repeatedly harassed Sulkarnain's girlfriend, which prompted him to seek to resolve their spat "man to man" to stop the harassment.
"The murder was not planned but it happened because of provocative elements as the victim had harassed Sulkarnain's girlfriend without feeling guilty or apologising for his actions," he said.
The incident occurred after Sulkarnain discovered that Bakarudin had called his girlfriend, who had been expelled from UiTM, asking her to spend a night at a condominium as a reward to help in her appeal to be readmitted to UiTM.
On Feb 23, 2015, a five-member Federal Court panel led by Tan Sri Ahmad Maarop unanimously rejected the three men's final appeal and maintained their conviction and death sentence.