PUTRAJAYA – A 76-year-old former security guard was among nine individuals whose death sentences were commuted to life imprisonment of 30 years by the Federal Court today.
The five-member panel led by Chief Justice Tun Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat allowed Jun Lam @ Chin See Kong’s review application under the Revision of Sentence of Death and Imprisonment for Natural Life (Temporary Jurisdiction of the Federal Court) Act.
Justice Tengku Maimun set aside the death sentence imposed on Jun Lam and substituted it with life imprisonment of 30 years. She also ordered him to serve the sentence from December 3, 2006, the date of his arrest.
Deputy public prosecutor Tetralina Ahmed Fauzi did not object to the review application.
The other judges were Court of Appeal president Tan Sri Abang Iskandar Abang Hashim, Chief Judge of Malaya Tan Sri Mohamad Zabidin Mohd Diah and Federal Court judges Datuk Mary Lim Thiam Suan and Datuk Abu Bakar Jais.
Jun Lam, whose Muslim name is Idris Chin Abdullah, has been in prison for 17 years.
On October 10, 2008, the high court sentenced him to death after finding him guilty of trafficking in 1,558g of ketamine at Gate C11, Satellite Building of the Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Sepang on December 3, 2006.
Jun Lam lost his appeals at the Court of Appeal on January 9, 2012, and at the Federal Court on March 20, 2014.
Meanwhile, the other eight individuals, including two foreign nationals, also had their death sentences commuted to life imprisonment of 30 years. They were all ordered to serve their sentences from their date of arrest respectively.
Deputy public prosecutors Datuk Yusaini Amir Abdul Karim, P. Sarulatha, Ng Siew Wee and Tetralina did not object to the applications.
They are Ghana citizen, Emmanuel Yaw Tieku, 60, Liberian national Nobies Weah Ezike, 52, Mohd Zaiham Mislan, 48, Mohamad Che Tam, 62, Faiz Khairudin, 53, Siew Yoke Keong, 56, Wong Hong, 68 and Phung Geok Hoay, 70.
The court also ordered Zaiham to be whipped 12 times.
All of them were sentenced to death by separate high courts for drug trafficking offences. – December 6, 2023