Court of Appeal commutes lovers’ death sentence for killing newborn
PUTRAJAYA: A man and his girlfriend were spared the gallows by the Court of Appeal today for killing their newborn baby girl, who was found with a sock stuffed in her mouth.
Fikri Hakim Kamaruddin, 27, and Nurul Filzatun Sahirah Abdul Aziz, 28, were instead sentenced to 30 years in prison. The court also ordered Fikri to be whipped 12 times.
Dismissing the duo’s appeal, a three-member panel of judges led by Justice Vazeer Alam Mydin Meera said that after considering the evidence, the court found that the prosecution had proven that Fikri and Nurul Filzatun intended to commit the offence.
Sitting alongside Vazeer were Justices Hadhariah Syed Ismail and Wong Kian Kheong.
Vazeer also said there was no contradiction in the evidence given by the nurse and the doctor during the trial.
On the sentence, Vazeer said that at the time the High Court handed down the sentence in 2021, the mandatory punishment for murder was death.
However, following an amendment to the law, the mandatory death sentence has been abolished, and the court has been given the discretion to impose either a death sentence or imprisonment of 30 to 40 years and a minimum 12 strokes of the rotan for male offenders.
“After considering the mitigation and the facts of the case, we are using our discretion to replace the death sentence with 30 years in prison for both the appellants, (calculated) from the date of arrest,” he said, adding that Fikri would also receive 12 strokes of the rotan.
This is the first murder case to be heard by the Court of Appeal since the amendment to the law in April this year which abolished the mandatory death sentence.
Under the amendment, judges were given the option to impose a prison term instead of the death penalty.
Fikri and Nurul Filzatun were found guilty by the High Court in Johor Bahru on Oct 31, 2021, of killing their baby girl in a house in Taman Bandar Penawar Utama, Bandar Penawar, Kota Tinggi, Johor Bahru, between 10.50pm on Dec 12, 2017, and 10.41am the next day.
According to the facts of the case, Nurul Filzatun had given birth and was brought to Kota Tinggi Hospital’s emergency ward after she suffered from bleeding post-labour.
She informed a nurse in the emergency ward that she had given birth, but the baby had been taken by her boyfriend.
On Dec 5, 2017, Fikri told a police officer that the baby had been buried. He then led a police team to the burial site in a forest area in Kampung Panti, Kota Tinggi.
The team found the baby’s corpse and sent it for a post-mortem.
Autopsy results showed that the baby, who weighed 1.8kg, had been alive at the time of birth and the cause of death was through smothering.
The body was found with a small black-and-blue-coloured sock stuffed into her mouth.
Fikri and Nurul Filzatun were arrested on Dec 5, 2017.
In mitigation, Fikri’s counsel Anita Vijaya Rajah said her client had been in love with Nurul Filzatun since 2016 and they were victims of circumstances.
She said the duo has another child whom they have given away.
Shaik Saleem Shaik Mohamed Daud appeared for Nurul Filzatun.
Deputy public prosecutor Dusuki Mokhtar, who was assisted by DPP Khairul Aisamuddin Abdul Rahman, urged the court to maintain the death sentence. Alternatively, he asked the court for a 35-year prison term.
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