Case: Ahmad Najib bin Aris v Public Prosecutor

Case number: 2 MLJ (2009).

Held by: Abdul Aziz Mohamad Ghazali and Azmel JJCA 5TH March 2007.

Court: Court of Appeal (Putrajaya) – Criminal Appeal NO B-05-28 OF 2005.

Victims’ information:

- Name: Canny Ong Lay Kian

- DOB: 18th July 1974 – Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia
- Died: 14th June 2003 when she was aged 28
- Location found dead: Jalan Klang Lama, Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia
- Cause of death: Murder by strangulation and stabbing
- Nationality: Malaysian
- Education level: Hawaii Pacific University
- Occupation: IT analyst
- Spouse: Bradon Ong (husband)
- Parents: Ong Bee Jeng- father, Pearly Visvanathan- mother

Complainant information:

- Name: Ahmad Najib

- Born in 1976 at Muar, Johor, Malaysia
- Died: 23rd September 2016 at the approximately aged 39-40
- Location found dead: Kajang Prison, Selangor, Malaysia
- Cause of death: Execution by hanging
- Criminal status: Executed on 23rd September 2016
- Conviction Murder (1 count) and rape (1 count)
- Criminal penalty: Death penalty for murder (date of sentencing: 23 February 2005)
20 years' imprisonment and 10 strokes of the cane for rape (23 February 2005)
- Victims: 1 dead, 4 alleged
- Victims date: Before 13 June 2003, 13-14 June 2003
- Country: Malaysia
- State: Pantai Dalam, Kuala Lumpur, Selangor
- Date apprehended: 20th June 2003

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Case details:

Criminal Law — Penal Code — s 300 — Murder — Circumstantial evidence —Whether

circumstantial evidence established the intention to cause death.

Criminal Law — Penal Code — s 375 — Rape — Circumstantial evidence — Whether

circumstantial evidence established sexual intercourse was without free consent of victim.

Evidence — Circumstantial evidence — Nature of — Whether pointed to accused as

perpetrator of criminal act.

Evidence — Confession — Made to magistrate — Whether magistrate prohibited from

recording confession if magistrate has reason to believe confession not made voluntarily —
Evidence Act 1950 s 115.

Evidence — Credibility — Discrepancies in evidence — Whether discrepancies could be

explained away in a manner so as not to shake integrity of conclusion drawn from rest of the
evidence.

Evidence — Documentary evidence — Computer printout — Admissibility of —Whether

certificate under s 90A (2) of Evidence Act 1950 necessary — Conditions for admissibility of
computer printout — Whether sufficient to show document was produced by the computer
during its ordinary use — Evidence Act 1950 s 90A (1), (2), (6)

Li Canny Ong Kian, an information technology analyst, was abducted on June 13 at the
Bangsar Shopping Centre. On June 17, 2003, her burned-out body was discovered in a
sewer at the New Pantai Expressway project site in Petaling Jaya.

Ahmad Najib Aris, an airline cabin cleaner, was found guilty of killing and raping Canny Ong
Lay Kian, an IT analyst, and was given the death penalty by the High Court.

Canny Ong was the murder victim because Ahmad Najib chose her because she was
attractive and thin. The sad event started when Canny, who was with Pearly Visvanathan,
Canny's mother, and her sister went to a dinner at Restaurant Monte at Bangsar Shopping
Centre (BSC), when Ahmad Najib abducted Pearly.

He abducted Canny and the Proton Tiara WFN 6871's registration number. His legs were
hanging out of the hole and his hands were crossed across his chest when the body was
discovered, burned in a 1x1x1 metre sewer hole.

Four days after being abducted from the BSC parking lot, her body was discovered in the
sewer pit underneath two tyres filled with cement. Malaysians continue to be shocked by the
Canny Ong matter.

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Information about the suspect:

The High Court found the appellant guilty of both rape and murder. For the rape, he received
a 20-year prison term, and ten rattan blows; for the murder, he received a death sentence.
He filed an appeal with the Court of Appeal contesting the judgements and punishments.
The appellant confessed to a magistrate, according to the record, and the High Court
declared that confession to be voluntary and admissible. The magistrate testified during
cross-examination at trial, however, that he (the magistrate) may stop recording the
confession if he (the magistrate) understood that the appellant did not give his confession
voluntarily. The magistrate disagreed, nevertheless, that if the appellant insisted on giving a
confession under these circumstances, he had to stop recording it. The magistrate stated in
his testimony that he would even though he was aware that no confession had been made,
he nonetheless agreed to the recording.

Counsel argued, among other things, that the High Court erred in finding the appellant's
confession to a magistrate under Section 115 of the Criminal Procedure Code voluntary
made and for admitting it thereto, and that certain DNA profiling documents produced by a
computer were inadmissible because they lacked a certificate as required by Section 90A
(2) of the Evidence Act of 1950.

Discovery of the body and Ahmad Najib's arrest.

A manager of a building site found Canny Ong's remains on the morning of June 17, 2003, a
Tuesday. She was discovered with her legs hanging out of the hole, a cloth around her neck,
and her hands crossed over her chest. Following reports of Canny Ong's disappearance, the
police showed up on the spot and removed the body for forensic examination. To identify the
body, Canny Ong's family was called. Police also found the Proton Tiara that had been
abandoned. Ong was strangled before her body was set ablaze, according to an autopsy.
Ong's genital area contained semen. After a thorough police investigation, Ahmad Najib was
detained on June 20, 2003, and DNA tests later verified that the semen matched Ahmad
Najib. Additionally, the man admitted to the police that he had slain Ong. He gave a detailed
account of the crime and even took the officers to the numerous crime locations connected
to the rape and murder. Additionally, Ahmad Najib admitted in his confession that he went to
the shopping centre to hunt for a woman with whom he had a score to settle and who was
also his former boss, but that he had mistaken Ong for the woman. After that, Ahmad Najib
was legally charged with murder and rape, and news of the case shocked the entire nation
of Malaysia. Ahmad Najib was related to and accused of committing four parking rape
crimes, according to additional police investigations, which raised the possibility that Ahmad
Najib was a serial rapist. The victims, some of whom were married, refused to reveal their

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names as Ahmad Najib's past rape victims, therefore the police were unable to properly
charge or investigate Ahmad Najib in these incidents. On June 27, 2003, a funeral service
for Canny Ong was held at St. Francis Xavier Church. More than 500 members of the public,
including several politicians, showed up for the burial to express their sympathies. At the
funeral, there were also members of Ong's family and friends.

Held, dismissing the appeal and confirming the convictions and sentences for rape.
and murder:

(1) Section 115(3) of the Evidence Act of 1950 was broken by the magistrate's
testimony on the confession's recording. Even if the subject of the recording insists
on making the confession, a magistrate is not allowed to record it if he has cause to
believe the confession was not given voluntarily. In the present instance, there were
facts that strongly suggested that the appellant had been coerced into confessing by
the police, at the very least under the promise of a reduced sentence. It was proper
for the trial judge to rule that the confession was not admissible. The magistrate
should not have been allowed to record the confession; the judge should have ruled.
Therefore, the confession was invalid (see para 38)
(2) A certificate under subsection (2) is not required for demonstrating that a document
was produced by a computer in the normal course of its usage since the word "may"
appears in section 90A (2). If there is evidence that a document was created by a
computer, section 90A (6) is applicable and considers the document to have been
created by the computer during normal operation. The Court of Appeal would adopt
the initial stance that, pursuant to Section 90A of the Evidence Act of 1950, the
only requirement for the admissibility of a document created by a computer and of
the statements in the document is as follows by the computer in the course of its
ordinary use ( see Paris 109-110): Gnanasegaran a/l Pararajasingam (1997) 3 MLJ
followed and Hanif bin Mat Hassan v Public Prosecutor (2006) 4 MLJ 134 not
followed.
(3) Despite the inadmissible confession in this case, the circumstantial evidence, when
taken as a whole, only pointed to one conclusion: the appellant alone was
accountable for what occurred to the victim (see para. 120); the case Idris v. Public
Prosecutor [1960] MLJ 296 was cited.

(4) It is possible to account for the disparities in the evidence about the appellant's
identity in a fashion that preserves the integrity of the judgement reached based on the
rest of the evidence (see para 126).

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(5) In the present instance, it was beyond reasonable question that the victim's free
consent was not obtained prior to the sexual intercourse. Therefore, the rape charge
conviction was appropriate. Additionally, there was no justification for considering the
possibility that the appellant committed his actions for any reason other than to kill the
victim. Consequently, the murder conviction was valid as well (see para 128).

Interviewers report regarding the case of PP v Ahmad Najib

https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2004/10/12/ahmad-najib-opts-to-remain-
silent?fbclid=IwAR0Rf9V5C-
tUQvhXx2FLqrWGgKIsJqptNXXGyFZxT7UnqeIupEUsfGKa3fg

Based on this report done by the interviewer its known that the case of Ahmad Najib, the
accused in the Canny Ong rape and murder trial was silent at the start of the defence
case.The High Court was astonished by Ahmad Najib's choice yesterday to remain silent
rather than raise his defence against the two counts, one of which carries a mandatory
death penalty.In most cases, the accused must be found guilty if they choose to keep
silent, leaving the court with no other option.Haniff Khatri Abdulla, Ahmad Najib's
attorney, begged the court to reconsider its decision before convicting his client. The
High Court ruled that the prosecution had established a prima facie case against Ahmad
Najib on August 6 and ordered him to enter his defence. He was given the choice to
either testify while being sworn in, speak from the witness stand, or keep silent."Just as
we previously stated in a letter to the court dated September 28, we are again restating
our client's advice that he has decided to keep quiet for the time being.

List of evidence collected

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Appeals and execution.

After being given a death sentence by the High Court, Ahmad Najib appealed his
conviction and sentence. However, on March 5, 2007, the Court of Appeal of Malaysia,
which is made up of judges Abdul Aziz Mohamed, Mohd Ghazali Mohd Yusoff, and
Azmel Ma'amor, dismissed the appeal and upheld Ahmad Najib's conviction and
sentence based on the forensic evidence against him. They did, however, reject the
admissibility of the confession. Ahmad Najib later appealed to the Federal Court of
Malaysia, the country's highest court, and his case was heard by a five-person bench
made up of the Chief Judge of Malaya, Datuk Arifin Zakaria, and four Federal Court
Justices: Datuk Nik Hashim Nik Ab Rahman, Datuk S. Augustine Paul, Datuk Hashim
Yusoff, and Datuk Zulkefli Ahmad Makinuddin. However, the Federal, Later, Ahmad Najib
pleaded with the Sultan of Selangor for mercy to commute his death sentence to life in
prison, but the request was denied. Ahmad Najib bin Aris, 40, was hanged on September
23, 2016, more than 13 years after the murder of Canny Ong, in Kajang Prison. The
Sungai Kantan Muslim cemetery in Kajang is where his body was later interred after
being restored to his family.

While on death row, Ahmad Najib's attorney referred to him as a "decent Muslim," and
prison guards claimed that Najib frequently led other prisoners in prayer and instructed
them in religion. The defence attorney said, "At least throughout the period of his
confinement prior to his execution, he was a better person than many individuals
outside."

Conclusion

A crime documentary was produced some time after the case was resolved to re-enact
the circumstances of Canny Ong's rapist-murderer Ahmad Najib's trial as well as to
describe the case's facts. On-screen interviews with Ong's family, friends, the
investigating policemen, and the attorneys for the case took place.

Crime Scene Asia: When Forensic Evidence Becomes the Silent Witness was written by
Australian mystery author Liz Porter. The focus of the book was on actual Asian murder
cases that were solved using forensic evidence; these cases were reported from
Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and other Asian nations. Porter includes 16 murder
cases from Asia, including the Canny Ong case.

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 (2117 words)

References

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