| Lyna Mohamad |

A MAN was yesterday sentenced to life imprisonment by the High Court for causing the death of another man.

Muhammad Zulkifli bin Abdul Jalil on April 4 pleaded guilty to causing the death of Ispawi bin Idris, 43, at a house in RPN Kampong Pandan 7, Kuala Belait between 3pm and 3.30pm on May 20, 2015.

He allegedly committed the offence with his friend Muhammad Hakimi Rizal bin Abdullah @ Eyan anak Beritin, 33, who reportedly committed suicide while in police custody on June 2, 2015.

Seeing the gravity of the offence committed, Chief Justice Dato Paduka Steven Chong handed the accused the maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

“This is not a crime committed on impulse,” the chief justice said. “The victim was deliberately lured to the house with the promise of sex as bait. The motive was to steal money from the victim. The defendant and co-defendant obtained sleeping pills, weed poison and weapons to use on the victim.”

He pointed out that even though the co-defendant was the “dominant character” who conceived the plot to obtain money from the victim and initiated the assault and inflicted the fatal blows with a machete on him, “the defendant participated actively in the violence”.

“This cold-blooded act reveals a dangerous man who is prepared to kill for money and caused the victim’s family devastation with the loss of a husband and son, and the victim’s wife now relies on her parents for support,” Chief Justice Dato Paduka Steven Chong said.

In summary, the admitted facts produced by Deputy Public Prosecutor Shamshuddin bin Haji Kamaluddin and Siti Nurjauinah binti Haji Kula state that sometime in May 2015, the co-defendant conceived a plan to create a fake female profile on AsiaFreeChat (AFC) to trick users into lending BND3,500 to the woman this profile supposedly represents.

The defendant created the account at AFC using his mobile phone, uploading a photograph of a woman and using the profile name “Meeza”.

The victim contacted “Meeza” on the morning of May 19, 2015, and was led to believe that she agreed to have sex with him in exchange for money.

The victim drove to the house in the afternoon the next day to meet “Meeza”.

On arriving at the house, the victim was told by the defendant that “Meeza” was “his sister” and that “she” was taking a shower. The defendant went into the kitchen to get a glass of water mixed with crushed sleeping pills and offered it to the victim.

The victim did not drink the laced water. He asked the defendant to tell “Meeza” to be “quick”. The defendant went upstairs to warn the co-defendant that the victim was getting impatient.

The defendant went back downstairs and told the victim that “Meeza” was coming down shortly.

While the victim was seated on a chair facing the defendant, the co-defendant entered the living room and attacked the victim from behind, hitting the back of his neck several times using a metal rod until he lost consciousness.

Realising the victim was still breathing, the defendant proceeded to hit him on his head with a hairspray bottle and the metal rod used by the co-defendant earlier on. The co-defendant also used a syringe to inject the victim with weed poison and hacked at his neck with the machete.

The defendants then covered the victim’s body with a rubbish bag after taking his bank card, mobile phone and car key, and placed the victim’s body on the rear passenger seat.

The co-defendant drove the car to a parking space behind a café near Jalan Pandan 7 and abandoned the car. The defendant, who had followed the co-defendant in a different car, picked him up and drove back to the house.

After removing the victim’s blood stains from various items in the house later that day, the defendants went to an ATM at a bank’s branch in Seria and tried to withdraw cash from the victim’s account using his bank card, but discovered that there was no money in the account.

The victim’s body was discovered after a café employee smelt a stench emanating from the abandoned car and alerted the police on May 23, 2015. CCTV footage from the bank’s Seria branch caught the defendants attempting to make withdrawals from the victim’s account at the ATM on the day, leading to their arrest by police two days later.

The post-mortem report indicated that the victim died due to haemorrhage resulting from cut injuries to the neck.

The defendant’s crime amounts to culpable homicide not amounting to murder under Section 304(1) of the Penal Code, Chapter 22 which warrants a sentence of imprisonment that may extend to life imprisonment.