Kho Jabing – Photo courtesy of the Singapore Police Force
SINGAPORE: Malaysian murder convict Jabing Kho was hanged in Singapore yesterday, police said, hours after the city-state’s highest court rejected a final bid for him to escape the gallows.
“A 32-year-old male Malaysian national, Jabing Kho had his death sentence carried out on 20 May, 2016, at Changi Prison Complex,” the Singapore Police Force said in a statement to AFP.
Kho, who was sentenced to death in 2010 for the murder of a Chinese construction worker, had been due to hang in Changi Prison at dawn yesterday, but was
granted a brief last-minute reprieve after his lawyer filed a challenge.
The Court of Appeal heard the latest plea yesterday morning but said it raised no new arguments about the 2008 robbery gone wrong, clearing the way for the execution.
“This case has been about many things, but today, it’s about the abuse of the process of the court,” said Court of Appeal Judge Chao Hick Tin.
Allowing Kho to continue with legal challenges would throw the judicial system “into disrepute”, he added.
Executions in Singapore are normally carried out by hanging at dawn on Fridays.
After Kho was sentenced to death in 2010, Singapore amended its mandatory death penalty for murder, giving judges the discretion to impose life imprisonment under certain circumstances.
Kho’s case was reviewed and he was re-sentenced to a life term in 2013. But state prosecutors appealed that ruling and his death sentence was reinstated in January 2015.
He was scheduled for execution on November 6 last year but another last-minute appeal saved him.
Kho’s accomplice in the crime had his conviction for murder overturned and got more than 18 years in prison and 19 strokes of the cane.
Meanwhile, Bernama reported that Jabing Kho was hanged at about 3.30pm.
“Jabing is undergoing the death sentence now…let us pray that his soul is calm and God brings Jabing to heaven,” his sister Jumai Kho posted on her Facebook yesterday afternoon.
Jumai told Bernama recently that her brother was expected to be laid to rest at the Mile 1 Muslim Cemetery in Jalan Kuala Baram, Miri.
Jabing had converted from Christianity to Islam in prison and chose Muhammad as his Muslim name.
The Malaysian High Commission is now preparing and working with the Sarawak government to bring back
Jabing’s remains scheduled for today.