Pendakwa Raya v MUHAMMAD HUZAIRI BIN RAZALI

Case Significance

Illustrates that under the Abolition of Mandatory Death Penalty Act 2023 the death penalty remains a discretionary option for murder under section 302 of the Penal Code, and may be imposed in an exceptional case such as the unprovoked public killing of two strangers.

This High Court decision at Muar is a double-murder trial that resulted in conviction and a death sentence, notable for the court's exercise of the sentencing discretion introduced by the Abolition of Mandatory Death Penalty Act 2023. The accused faced two charges of murder under section 302 of the Penal Code. The first concerned a killing at a coffee shop in Pekan Buloh Kasap, Segamat, in the late afternoon; the second, minutes later, concerned a killing at a durian stall nearby. On the evidence the accused had inflicted multiple incised wounds to the face of the first victim and stabbed him repeatedly with a parang, and had then stabbed the second victim while sitting on him in a public place, in the presence of police officers and members of the public. Both victims were strangers to the accused.

The court analysed the elements of murder under sections 299, 300 and 302 of the Penal Code, including the intention to cause death and whether the injuries were sufficient in the ordinary course of nature to cause death, and it examined a raised defence of insanity. It held that the prosecution had proven all the ingredients of the charges beyond a reasonable doubt, and that the accused had failed to establish the defence of insanity on the balance of probabilities or to raise a reasonable doubt on the prosecution's case. It accordingly found the accused guilty as charged and convicted him.

In sentencing, the court considered the Abolition of Mandatory Death Penalty Act 2023, which now confers a discretion, but found the manner in which the accused hunted for his victims and the injuries inflicted made this an exceptional case. It sentenced the accused to death by hanging in accordance with section 277 of the Criminal Procedure Code. The judgment illustrates that, even under the reformed regime, the death penalty remains available and may be imposed in an exceptional case.