Alowonle Oluwajuwon Gilbert, a Nigerian, was given a 35-year prison sentence instead of the death penalty for the murder of a chief nurse at Serdang Hospital by the Court of Appeal on Wednesday, August 9, 2023, saving him from the death penalty in Malaysia.
According to LIB, on August 4, 2021, the high court in Shah Alam found Gilbert guilty and sentenced him to death for the murder of Siti Kharina Mohd Kamarudin at a condominium unit in the Third Avenue Condominium in Cyberjaya between 12:41 a.m. on May 9 and 2:30 p.m. on May 15, 2019.
a trio of judges from the Putrajaya Court of Appeal, Datuk Vazeer Alam Mydin Meera, Datuk Ahmad Zaidi Ibrahim, and Datuk SdotM. Alowonle Oluwajuwon Gilbert was also given 12 cane strokes by Komathy Suppiah.
The 40-year-old man’s jail term was mandated to begin on May 16, 2019, the day of his arrest.
Gilbert’s appeal against his murder conviction was rejected by the bench, according to Justice Vazeer, who delivered the court’s unanimous ruling. This was done on the grounds that his conviction for killing Siti Kharina Mohd Kamarudin was secure enough to stand.
He claimed that since Gilbert’s (Gilbert’s) defense of alibi had been rejected by the trial judge, there was no need for the court to consider whether any other statutory defenses applied to him.
In addition, he continued, the appellate court did not find that Gilbert had any standing to raise any statutory defenses.
Regarding the sentence, Justice Vazeer ruled that the prosecution had not suppressed any evidence by failing to give the defense access to the full recordings of a closed-circuit television camera (CCTV) at the Third Avenue Condominium in Cyberjaya for the days following the incident.
Gilbert should have requested its production if the recording was crucial to the defense’s case, he continued.
He added, however, that after Section 302 of the Penal Code was altered, the court agreed with Gilbert’s attorney, Afifuddin Ahmad Hafifi, that the death penalty should be reduced to imprisonment in light of the relevant circumstances and facts.
We removed the death penalty and replaced it with a sentence of 35 years in prison beginning on the day of the arrest, along with a 12 stroke whipping.
Afifuddin claimed Gilbert and the deceased were in a relationship and were cohabitating earlier on in today’s proceedings.
No proof of premeditation, he claimed, and the fact that Gilbert’s blood was discovered on the victim’s clothing and at the scene of the crime suggested that a fight between his client and the victim might have occurred in the moment.
He claimed the trial judge had the authority to find Gilbert guilty of a lesser offense, such as culpable homicide that did not constitute murder.
Assistant district attorney P. Gilbert chose to use an alibi defense, according to Sarulatha, so the trial judge did not need to take those into account.
Considering that there was no movement in the condominium complex after the incident, she continued, it was also unnecessary to provide the entire CCTV recordings.
