SIBU: Tiang Lee Yee, charged with the Pulau Li Hua murder of his wife and two children on July 5 last year, will stand trial in the High Court here in July.
He was brought before a magistrate yesterday where the latter transferred his case to the High Court. The date for the trial has yet to be confirmed.
Tiang is charged with killing his wife Ling Yung Ming, son Victor and daughter Christine, and attempted murder of his elder son Vincent, in a sensational case that shook Sibu town.
The three murder charges are filed under Section 302 of the Penal Code, which carries the mandatory death sentence upon conviction.
The attempted murder charge is filed under Section 307 of the Penal Code, which provides for imprisonment up to 10 years, in this case 20 years, for causing hurt to Vincent while trying to kill him.
Tiang is also charged with attempted suicide under Section 309 of the Penal Code, which provides for jail up to a year or with a fine, or both.
Tiang was not represented in court yesterday.
According to earlier press reports, Tiang allegedly committed the offences in his house at Pulau Li Hua.
His eldest son, Vincent, escaped and sought help at a neighbour’s house.
Reports said Tiang then fled in a family vehicle to Bintulu where he was arrested in the evening of the same day during which police found a bottle of weed-killer and a water hose in his vehicle.
The oil palm site-clearing contractor was said to have taken the family out for a lavish dinner the night before the alleged murder.
After dinner, he was said to have huddled his family to a room and fed them sleeping pills before suffocating them with gas in a mass suicide.
Tiang was later disclosed to be in debt of RM3.5 million.