Malaysian court upholds conviction against former pathologist, 5 others over murder of prosecutor Kevin Morais

PUTRAJAYA: The Malaysian Court of Appeal on Thursday (Mar 14) upheld the death sentence of six men convicted of murdering Deputy Public Prosecutor Anthony Kevin Morais nine years ago.

They are former pathologist Colonel Dr R Kunaseegaran, 61; money lender S Ravi Chandran, 53; and four other unemployed men, R Dinishwaran, 32; A K Thinesh Kumar, 31; M Vishwanath, 34; and S Nimalan, 31.

A three-judge panel consisting of Judge Hadhariah Syed Ismail, Judge Ahmad Zaidi Ibrahim and Judge Azmi Ariffin unanimously dismissed the appeal filed by the six men to set aside the decision of the High Coirt on July 10, 2020, which convicted and sentenced them to death for the murder.

In the court’s decision, Judge Hadhariah said after examining all the grounds of judgement by the High Court judge and the evidence presented in court, the Court of Appeal found that the High Court judge did not err in terms of law and facts.

“The conviction imposed (against the six men) by the High Court was correct,” she said.

Judge Hadhariah said that Morais’ murder was carefully planned and the condition of the body when it was found showed the cruelty of all the accused.

“If killing the victim was not enough, the deceased’s car was also burned and his personal belongings were disposed of.

“This murder incident is categorised as extraordinary from an ordinary murder incident. Therefore, in our opinion, the punishment that commensurate (with) the offence committed is hang to death,” said Judge Hadhariah.

She also said that when Morais’ body was found, it was fully clothed (but) without shoes and the hands tied behind his back with a tie.

“There are seven pressure marks or compression on the chest, shoulders and back of the body, which is placed in a sack in a foetal position. The sack is tied with iron wire and then put into the drum. Then, cement is poured into the drum barrel which is them dumped into a swamp area,” she said.

She said forensic experts testified that the cause of Morais’ death was due to suffocation.

The judge also said there was a common intention among all the accused to kill Morais because Ravi Chandran, Dinishwaran, Thinesh Kumar, Vishwanath and Nimalan were together during the deliberate collision between their Triton car and the deceased’s car.

Judge Hadhariah said Kunaseegaran was also involved based on the fact that he only smiled and advised G Gunasekaran to keep calm and not interfere in the affairs of the other accused when the latter told him about the blood flowing from the drum barrel.

“Kunaseegaran also showed a picture of the deceased’s burning car in his mobile phone to Gunasekaran and Kunaseegaran also said that he would bear the legal fees of the other accused because all the problems stemmed from him,” she said.

Judge Hadhariah said Kunaseegaran had a motive to kill Morais and that the other accused were his agents.

Gunasekaran was initially accused of murdering Morais but the charge was later withdrawn after he pleaded guilty in the Sessions Court to the charge of disposing Morais’ body and was sentenced to two years in prison for the offence.

The prosecution then called Gunasekaran as a prosecution witness in the trial against the six accused.

On July 10, 2020, the High Court sentenced the six men to death after finding them guilty of killing Morais.

They were charged with killing Morais, 55, at a location along Jalan Dutamas Raya Sentul and Jalan USJ 1/6D, Subang Jaya between 7am and 8pm on Sep 4, 2015.

The deceased was reported missing on the date in question and was last seen leaving the condominium in a Proton Perdana car from Menara Duta, Kuala Lumpur, to his office at the Attorney General’s Chambers in Putrajaya.

His body was found in a drum filled with concrete at Persiaran Subang Mewah, Subang Jaya, on Sep 16 of the same year.