Ommar (second right) talking to his counsel Hamid outside the Federal Court yesterday.
KOTA KINABALU: A 35-year-old man was yesterday sentenced to 18 years’ jail after the Federal Court allowed the prosecution’s appeal against the Court of Appeal’s decision to acquit and discharge him.
Chief Justice of Malaya Tan Sri Datuk Seri Zulkefli Ahmad Makinudin, who sat together with Justices Tan Sri Suriyadi Halim Omar, Tan Sri Ahmad Maarop, Tan Sri Hasan Lah and Tan Sri Abu Samah Nordin, unanimously substituted Ommar Yacob’s acquittal and discharge three years ago from the charge under Section 302 of the Penal Code.
In their ruling, the court found the respondent (Ommar) guilty under an amended charge under Section 304 of the Penal Code in causing the death of 27-year-old Jully Martin from Long Pasia in a room at Bandaran Berjaya here, between 1pm and 3pm on 12 May 2007.
Deputy public prosecutor Mangai Krishnan had submitted that the respondent had kicked open the door of the victim’s rented room, and the victim had sustained a total of 54 injuries as a result of the confrontation, 18 of which were stab wounds.
In reply, counsel Hamid Ismail argued that his client had no intention of murdering the victim.
Hamid contended that his client was only acting in self-defence as the latter was caught in a ‘kill or be killed’ scenario.
Moreover, he said, his client had also sustained injuries in his third and fourth fingers apart from his neck, for which the latter had to seek medical attention.
Hamid also told the court that the doctor who examined his client testified in the lower court that if the injuries sustained by his client were deeper, the latter would have met the same fate as the victim.
On February 19, 2010, the High Court here sentenced the respondent to death by hanging after he was found guilty of killing the victim in a rented room in Bandaran Berjaya here between 1pm and 3pm on May 12, 2007.
Then on November 27, 2012, the respondent escaped the gallows after the Court of Appeal here set aside his death sentence for killing the victim at the same time and place.