KUALA LUMPUR – Five individuals, who were charged with the murder of 18-year-old T. Nhaveen in 2017, were acquitted and discharged at the Penang High Court in George Town today.
Judge Mohd Radzi Abdul Hamid found S. Gopinaath, 30; J. Ragesuthan, 22; S. Gokulan, 22; and two others, who were underage at the time of the offence, not guilty.
T. Nhaveen had burns on his back and brutal injuries before he died days after being pronounced brain dead.
The five individuals were accused of murdering 18-year-old Nhaveen at a park on Jalan Bunga Raya between 11pm and midnight on June 9, 2017 as well as committing grievous assault on Nhaveen’s friend, T. Previin, then 19, on the same night.
In reading out his judgement, Radzi said “major flaws” in the prosecution’s case against the five accused had led to a failure in proving a prima facie case.
According to a report by Free Malaysia Today, the judge said the core issue centred on the lack of credibility in star witness Previin’s testimony, despite him being the only witness who saw the events building up to Nhaveen’s death and having suffered physical injuries himself.
The judge said that Previin’s testimony could not establish whether a group of 20 people had assaulted him and Nhaveen at the Padang Openg public park in Bukit Gelugor, leading to doubts on whether another beating incident had occurred at Minden Heights later.
“You can’t have the victim in two separate places. This whole charge appears to be in a blur. There’s serious doubt on all the charges,” Radzi was quoted as saying.
Previin’s inconsistent testimony, the judge said, included a claim that he never spoke Bahasa Malaysia despite attending a national school, leading to a lengthy engagement with a Tamil interpreter, and a false police report claim.
As such, due to the doubtful nature of Previin’s credibility, the court had no option but to dismiss the entirety of his testimony.
In ruling that the four initially accused had not shown joint intent to murder Nhaveen, the judge also said the prosecution should have recognised the issue of Previin’s differing testimony and called two other corroborative witnesses to help establish the scene of the alleged crime.
Besides that, Radzi said the mid-trial murder and assault charge against the fifth accused, Gopinaath, following Previin’s claim that the accused was part of the group that beat Nhaveen to death, was unjust.
“The fifth accused (Gopinaath) was never present at the scene of the crime. There was no investigation conducted regarding his involvement. This represents a failure on the part of the police to conduct a proper investigation into his role in this case.”
Gopinaath was detained for a year and nine months while the other four spent six years and three months in detention.
Deputy public prosecutor Mohd Azhar Hamzah prosecuted while lawyers Datuk Naran Singh, Manveer Singh Dhillon and S. Yagoo represented the five accused. Sukhindarpal Singh held a watching brief for the Malaysian Bar. – October 3, 2023