According to Putrajaya, a lawyer has suggested that there isn’t enough evidence for his client to be charged with the murder of DPP Datuk Anthony Kevin Morais, as reported by the Court of Appeal on Thursday. The lawyer, Kitson Foong, who is representing S. Ravi Chandaran, one of the six men convicted of killing Morais, informed the court that an accomplice who turned prosecution witness solely stated that an abduction had taken place and did not address Morais’ murder. Foong argued that his client should have been charged with kidnapping under Section 3 of the Kidnapping Act 1961, rather than murder under Section 302 of the Penal Code. He also mentioned that the 11 grounds used by the High Court judge to sustain the murder charge did not support the offence, but rather indicated that an abduction had occurred. Additionally, Foong contended that the 54th witness, G. Gunasekaran, was never able to provide evidence relating to the murder despite initially being charged with the six men for killing Morais. After pleading guilty in the Sessions Court to a charge of disposing of the body, the charge against Gunasekaran was withdrawn, and he was later called as a prosecution witness.
Foong also argued that Gunasekaran’s evidence should have been corroborated considering his active role in the purported commission of the offence. He asserted that the High Court judge’s findings that Gunasekaran’s evidence was corroborated amounted to a serious misdirection. Highlighting Gunasekaran’s active participation as an accomplice, Foong suggested that this raised the likelihood of fabricating or embellishing evidence in favor of the prosecution for self-preservation, necessitating corroboration of his evidence. Foong contended that the High Court judge erred in ruling that there was a common intention of all the six accused persons to murder Morais. The appeal by the six against their convictions and death sentences for the murder is being heard by a three-member panel comprising Justices Datuk Hadhariah Syed Ismail, Datuk Ahmad Zaidi Ibrahim, and Datuk Azmi Ariffin.
Colonel Dr R. Kunaseegaran, Ravi Chandaran, and four others – R. Dinishwaran, A.K. Thinesh Kumar, M. Vishwanath, and S. Nimalan – were sentenced to death by the High Court in 2020 for the murder, which was committed between 7am and 8pm on Sept 4, 2015, somewhere along Jalan Dutamas Raya Sentul and No. 1, Jalan USJ 1/6D, Subang Jaya. Morais was reported missing the same day and his body was found in an oil drum filled with cement at Persiaran Subang Mewah, Subang Jaya, 12 days later. Amer Hamzah Arshad, Nimalan’s lawyer, argued that the murder conviction of his client was unsafe as Nimalan only showed the location where the drum containing Morais’ body was disposed of and did not know the contents of the drum. Other lawyers representing the convicted men were Datuk N. Sivananthan for Kunaseegaran, M. Manoharan for Dinishwaran, Burhanudeen Abdul Wahid for Thinesh Kumar, and Afifuddin Ahmad Hafifi for Vishwanath. DPPs Datuk Dusuki Mokhtar, Mohd Fairuz Johari, and Mohd Fuad Abdul Aziz appeared for the prosecution. The appeal is set to resume hearing on Dec 14. – Bernama
