KUALA LUMPUR: A pair of siblings, S. Angela Dewi and her brother S.Vijaya were sentenced to 33 years jail by the Court of Appeal, for murdering the 48-year-old woman's blind husband at Kampung Baru Sungai Chua, Kajang, four years ago.
A three-judge panel, led by Datuk Che Mohd Ruzima Ghazali, ruled that the appeals by Angela and her 44-year-old younger brother had no merit based on the evidence provided by witnesses.
"The murder conviction is safe and we affirm the findings," Mohd Ruzima was quoted saying in an oral ruling, FMT reported. The other two judges on the panel were Datuk Ahmad Zaidi Ibrahim and Datuk Noorin Badaruddin.
Earlier the High Court had sentenced the duo to a death penalty in September last year but the Court of Appeals yesterday replaced the death sentence with 33 years of prison sentence for both.
The sentences will commence from Oct 2020, when they were arrested.
Additionally, the judges also sentenced Vijaya to a minimum of 10 strokes of the rotan.
Lawyer M Manoharan who represented Angela and Vijaya requested a 30-year prison sentence, instead of the death penalty, since the case did not meet the criteria for a death penalty.
Manoharan told the court that the trial judge had not provided detailed reasoning for the capital punishment meted out earlier.
Deputy public prosecutor Tetralina Ahmed Fauzi suggested a custodial sentence between 33 and 35 years, considering the court's discretion in sentencing.
Generally for murder convictions, jail terms range from 30 to 40 years.
The pair allegedly killed R. Devarajoo, 59 on October 1, 2020, between noon and 1pm at a house in PKNS low-cost housing area in Kampung Baru Sungai Chua, Kajang.
Angela had initially reported to the police that a robbery had occurred at her home, during which her husband, Devarajoo, was struck on the head. Investigations later suggested that the incident might have been related to disputes over inheritance.