Yashmin Fauzi | |
---|---|
Born | Yashmin Fauzi c. 1990 |
Died | 1 March 2015 (aged 25) Kampung Batu Papan, Gua Musang, Kelantan, Malaysia |
Cause of death | Fatal slash wounds to the neck |
Nationality | Malaysian |
Occupation | Nurse |
Known for | Rape and murder victim |
Spouse | Mohd Azrul Isahak |
Children | Ahmad Qashri Mohd Azrul (eldest son) Qashri Adli Mohd Azrul (second son) Qashri Adam Mohd Azrul (youngest son) |
Family | Isahak Deris (father-in-law) |
On 1 March 2015, a 25-year-old nurse and wife of an auxiliary policeman was found with multiple slash and stab wounds at her home in Kampung Batu Papan, near Gua Musang in the Malaysian state of Kelantan. The victim, Yashmin Fauzi, gave a description and identity of her attacker who robbed, raped and slashed her before she died. Yashmin's killer was arrested after some investigations, and it was found that the perpetrator, Mohammad Awari Ahmad, had broke into the house to commit robbery, and he also raped Yashmin before murdering her in front of Yashmin's five-year-old eldest son. Mohammad Awari was found guilty of both counts of rape and murder in 2018, and sentenced to death for the charge of murder while receiving 18 years' jail and 12 strokes of the cane for the other charge of rape. Mohammad Awari lost his appeals between 2019 and 2020, [1] [2] but on 7 August 2024, Mohammad Awari's death sentence for Yashmin's murder was commuted to 40 years in jail and 12 strokes of the cane. [3]
On 1 March 2015, the wife of an auxiliary policeman was robbed, raped and murdered at her home in Kampung Batu Papan, near Gua Musang in Kelantan. [4] [5]
The victim was identified as 25-year-old Yashmin Fauzi, who worked as a nurse and was married with three sons at the time of her death. Her 30-year-old husband Mohd Azrul Isahak, who returned home after feeling unwell at the start of his work shift, discovered the semi-naked Yashmin lying motionless outside their matrimonial home in a pool of blood, presumably taken outside by her assailant(s) or herself attempting to seek help from the neighbours. [6] Yashmin was taken to Gua Musang Hospital for treatment, but she was pronounced dead at 6.40am. It was believed that Yashmin had been attacked by robber(s) who intruded her home while she was sleeping. [7] [8] There were stab and slash wounds found on the hands and neck of the victim. [9] Gua Musang District Police Chief, Supt Saiful Bahri Abdullah also revealed that the victim's bedroom had numerous bloodstains, suggesting that the attack took place in the bedroom. [10]
Before she died, Yashmin left behind a written note that pinpointed the identity and description of her attacker. One of Yashmin's sons, aged five, also told the police that he saw a "bad man" attacking and murdering his mother, and he was reportedly shocked and traumatized by the ordeal. The boy was the only one out of Yashmin's three sons to witness the death of his mother, because his other two brothers, aged three years and six months respectively, were asleep at that time. Kelantan Police Chief Datuk Mazlan Lazim issued a media statement, expressing his belief that with the available information that alluded to the identity of the killer, they would be able to solve the case. [11] [12] With the death of his wife, Mohs Azrul told a newspaper that he promised to take care of his three sons and provide them with all the love they deserved in the absence of their mother. [13]
Shortly after the murder of Yashmin, a 22-year-old man had been arrested and investigated for the case, and the police recovered a parang, which was presumed to be the murder weapon. [14] On 11 March 2015, the suspect, reportedly named Mohammad Awari Ahmad, was charged with murder. [15]
Mohammad Awari Ahmad | |
---|---|
Born | 1993 (age 30–31) |
Criminal status | Incarcerated since 2015 |
Conviction(s) | Murder (x1) Rape (x1) |
Criminal penalty | Murder Death, commuted to 40 years' imprisonment plus 12 strokes of the cane (concurrent) Rape 18 years' imprisonment plus 12 strokes of the cane (concurrent) |
Details | |
Victims | Yashmin Fauzi (deceased) |
Date | 1 March 2015 |
Country | Malaysia |
State(s) | Kelantan |
Date apprehended | 1 March 2015 |
The exact date of when Mohammad Awari Ahmad's trial began was unknown, but after being in remand for a period of time, Mohammad Awari's case was officially slated for trial hearing at the Kota Bahru High Court. The prosecution was led by Deputy Public Prosecutor Shaharaliza Ab Razak, while Mohammad Awari was represented by defence lawyer Latifah Ariffin, and the trial was presided over by Judicial Commissioner Datuk Ahmad Bache. [16]
The trial court was told that on the day in question, Mohammad Awari, who was formerly a sawmill worker and also a family friend of Yashmin, broke into her house in order to commit robbery, and between 12.30 and 2am, he was caught red-handed by Yashmin, who was awakened by his sounds of ransacking the house, and he attacked her and overpowered the 25-year-old victim. Mohammad Awari wielded a parang to stab and slash Yashmin several times, including twice on her neck; a pathologist confirmed that the neck wounds were sufficient in the ordinary course of nature to cause death. During the course of the attack, Mohammad Awari had raped Yashmin, and Yashmin's eldest son witnessed the horrific ordeal that befell upon his mother, who was mortally wounded but managed to leave behind the identity of her killer just before she breathed her last. After the end of his monstrous acts, Mohammad Awari stole Yashmin's mobile phone and RM200 in cash, and went out to drink alcohol thereafter. [17] [18] Mohammad Awari reportedly denied that he had the intention of murdering the victim when his defence was called. [19]
On 31 January 2018, Judicial Commissioner Datuk Ahmad Bache delivered his verdict. In his judgment, Judicial Commissioner Ahmad did not accept Mohammad Awari's claims of not having the intention to cause the death of Yashmin, given that he repeatedly attacked Yashmin by using a parang to cause severe harm to her, and the manner and brutality of the parang attack demonstrated his intention to kill. Furthermore, this intention was corroborated by the decision of Mohammad Awari to switch from a wooden stick to the parang prior to entering the house to commit robbery. The judge pointed out that the victim's five-year-old son also witnessed the attack and his testimony of witnessing the accused slashing his mother's neck twice had cemented the prosecution's contention that Mohammad Awari possesed an inherently clear intention to commit the offence of murder. [20]
Therefore, Mohammad Awari was found guilty of the rape and murder of Yashmin Fauzi on both counts. For the charge of rape, Mohammad Awari was sentenced to 18 years' imprisonment and 12 strokes of the cane. However, for the other charge of murder, Mohammad Awari was sentenced to the mandatory death penalty, the sole punishment prescribed for murder under Section 302 of the Malaysian Penal Code. [21] [22]
After he was sentenced to hang, Mohammad Awari appealed to the Court of Appeal against his murder conviction and death sentence, but the appeal was dismissed in 2019. The Court of Appeal affirmed the High Court's decision to accept the victim's dying message of her killer's identity, and accepted that Mohammad Awari had intended to kill Yashmin or knowing that his act will cause injury which can normally lead to the death of Yashmin according to Sections 300(a) and 300(c) of the Penal Code. [23] As a final legal bid to escape the gallows, Mohammad Awari appealed to the Federal Court of Malaysia, the highest court of the nation. [24]
On 7 October 2020, the Federal Court began to hear Mohammad Awari's appeal. While the appellant did not challenge his conviction and sentence for rape, Mohammad Awari's counsel argued that the prosecution had failed to prove that the appellant had the intention to commit murder, and rounding up the circumstances of how Mohammad Awari broke into the house and committed the crime after being caught by surprise, the defence argued that Mohammad Awari's murder conviction should be downgraded to manslaughter. [25] [26]
However, the prosecution brought the Federal Court's attention to the callousness and inhumane nature of the murder, and urged the court to maintain the death sentence and murder conviction. Deputy Public Prosecutor Nazran Mohd Sham stated that the murder happened right in front of the victim’s five-year-old son. He described the actions of Mohammad Awari as "brutal, aggressive and vicious", and pointed out that the appellant raped Yashmin while she was bleeding from her neck wound. He cited that Yashmin sustained 11 injuries on the neck and hands, as a result of Mohammad Awari using a parang to slash the right and left side of the victim’s neck, which was clear evidence of Mohammad Awari's intention to kill. The prosecution also brought up the fact that Mohammad Awari had stolen RM200 and a mobile phone belonging to Yashmin, and went to a restaurant to consume seven bottles of liquor, so as to "celebrate". [27] [28]
After their deliberation of the submissions, the Federal Court's three-member bench – consisting of Justice Rohana Yusuf, Justice Vernon Ong Lam Kiat and Justice Hasnah Mohammed Hashim – unanimously rejected the appeal, after they observed that there was no error made by either the High Court or the Court of Appeal. Justice Rohana, who pronounced the ruling, said that the prosecution successfully proven the elements of the murder charge, specifically the intention of causing death. She also said the supporting evidence, such as eyewitness accounts, was very strong and overwhelmingly against Mohammad Awari. [29] [30]
For this, the Federal Court upheld the murder conviction and confirmed the death penalty on Mohammad Awari, whose conviction and 18-year jail term (with the caning) for raping Yashmin was also finalized as well since he did not appeal this aspect of the original judgement. [31] [32]
Two years and six months after Mohammad Awari lost his appeal to the Federal Court, the Malaysian government abolished the mandatory death penalty in April 2023, and under the revised laws, anyone convicted of murder would face either the death sentence or a lengthy jail term ranging between 30 and 40 years, [33] and after the new laws took effect in July 2023, 936 out of more than 1,000 death row prisoners in Malaysia filed applications to the Federal Court of Malaysia to be re-sentenced, and the Federal Court completed the hearings of 474 applications (19 of which had their death sentences maintained) as of June 2024. Mohammad Awari was among the offenders who appealed for re-sentencing to the Federal Court. [34] [35]
On 7 August 2024, the Federal Court allowed Mohammad Awari's re-sentencing plea and reduced his death sentence to 40 years' imprisonment and 12 strokes of the cane, after finding that despite the exceptional circumstances of his crime, they considered Mohammad Awari's young age of 22 as a mitigating factor. Mohammad Awari's 18-year jail term and 12 strokes of the cane for rape was to take effect concurrently. [36] [37]
During the same month of March 2015 when the murder of Yashmin Fauzi took place, several groups of women rights advocates called for better protection of females against gender violence. [38]
In June 2015, Yashmin's three sons were among 150 orphans who received donations under the Titipan Kasih Harian Metro (TKHM) scheme, and the boys' 58-year-old grandmother Che Zainun Daud was reportedly grateful for the aid, and described it as meaningful for her grandsons, who lost their mother in such a terrible way. [39]
In February 2018, Nik Elin Rashid, an activist lawyer from Kelantan, stated that the Malaysian Islamic Party’s Islamic administration in Kelantan should reinforce measures to ensure the protection of women, given that despite the enforcement of hudud laws and practice of women wearing Tudongs, these practices did not protect Yashmin from falling victim to rape and murder, and did not deter Mohammad Awari from raping and murdering Yashmin, although she noted that Mohammad Awari had yet to appeal at this point in time. Women’s Aid Organisation director Sumitra Visvanathan also stated that such crimes often happen due to men possibly harbouring a sense of entitlement over women. [40]
In May 2019, Isahak Deris, Yashmin's 67-year-old father-in-law, agreed to be interviewed over the case of his daughter-in-law's death. He stated that for the past four years, he would often bring his three grandsons to their mother's grave every Friday except for Hari Raya Aidilfitri, as his grandsons missed their mother greatly, and he himself also could not get over the loss of his daughter-in-law. Isahak also said that while his two older grandsons still remembered Yashmin, his youngest grandson, who was only six months old at the time of the murder, often asked where was his mother and what happened to her, after seeing that his friends had mothers, and his brothers had to tell him the truth. [41] In May 2020, the three sons of Yashmin, who all were living with their aunt Robiatul Ishak at this point in time, stated in another interview that they missed their mother, and earlier that same year, Yashmin's father-in-law died from unknown causes. [42]
During the same week of October 2020 when Mohammad Awari's appeal was dismissed by the Federal Court, his case became a focal of attention during the debate of capital punishment in Malaysia. While the discussion alluded to the heinous nature of Mohammad Awari's crimes, it was noted that nearly 70% of the prisoners held on Malaysia's death row were convicted of drug trafficking and not all the prisoners were under death sentences for crimes of the same magnitude as Mohammad Awari's, and the abolitionists cited that the death penalty should not be deployed as it was state-sanctioned revenge for executing those convicted of murder and might have irreversible effects on a person once it was carried out. [43] [44]
In April 2023, in an interview, Yashmin's husband Mohd Azrul Isahak revealed that even after eight years since the murder of his wife, his eldest son Ahmad Qushri, aged 13 at this point, was still traumatized and grappling with grief over his mother's death. By then, Mohd Azrul had remarried and he had three more children, and he became a stepfather to his second wife's three children from her previous marriage, and he was struggling to feed his family with the monthly income of RM1,700 he earned as a civil servant. Mohd Azrul stated that Ahmad Qushri and his second brother still remembered and missed their mother, although the youngest son he had with Yashmin had little to no memory of his birth mother since he was just a baby when the tragedy befell on their family back in 2015. [45]
On 22 April 1972, Poon Sai Im, a 58-year-old provisions shop owner who lived on the island of Pulau Ubin, Singapore, was ambushed by two men, who had gone from mainland Singapore to the island to rob her of money, cigarettes and gold items. When one of Poon's attackers went into the room to look for valuables, the other attacker, 19-year-old Mohamed Yasin bin Hussin, alias Rosli, took upon himself to rape the victim and while doing so caused the elderly victim to die from fatal rib fractures. Both men were eventually arrested nine months after the case and tried for murder.
On the morning of 25 November 1977, ten-year-old schoolgirl Cheng Geok Ha was last seen playing with her two friends at the carpark below her flat at Chai Chee, Singapore. According to the pair who were last with Cheng, the girl hung out with them at the playground for a while before she left, and she never came back home that night. The Cheng family reported Cheng missing, and there was a public appeal which sought information to trace her whereabouts.
On 25 November 2016, at Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal, Singapore, during a heated argument, Ahmad Muin bin Yaacob, a 23-year-old Malaysian cleaner, killed his 54-year-old supervisor Maimunah binte Awang by stabbing her with a pair of grass cutters and bludgeoning her on the head repeatedly. He stole Maimunah's jewellery and abandoned her body in a drain before he fled back to his hometown in Pasir Puteh, Kelantan, Malaysia. He pawned some of the jewellery for money to afford his wedding expenses. Ahmad was arrested by the Royal Malaysia Police a month later on 18 December 2016, merely nine days after his marriage. Ahmad was extradited back to Singapore the next day to be charged with intentional murder. On 4 November 2020, Ahmad was found guilty of a lesser charge of murder in his trial and he was sentenced to the minimum sentence of life imprisonment and eighteen strokes of the cane, after the prosecution agreed to not argue for the death penalty in his case.
On 2 November 1984, 19-year-old interior designer Lim Hwee Huang was thrown off a tenth storey HDB flat at Kallang Bahru, after she was raped by 27-year-old Eurasian Singaporean Hensley Anthony Neville, who fled to the neighbouring country Malaysia. He was on the run for more than two years before he was finally arrested by Malaysian police, who sent him back to Singapore in March 1987 for the charge of murdering Lim. Neville, who was caught in the Malaysian state of Selangor, was also a suspect behind two unsolved killings in Malaysia.
On 12 February 1991, a 78-year-old housewife Sukarti binti Amari was found murdered inside her Telok Blangah flat by her nephew and husband. Her eight rings, gold chains and other jewellery worth S$5,000 were missing from the flat. Two suspects were arrested at least three months later for Sukarti's murder. It was established that both the killers had planned to enter Sukarti's flat to commit robbery, and they devised using chilli powder to blind the deceased before restraining her and strangling her.
On 12 December 1976, at Margaret Drive Hawker Centre in Queenstown, 24-year-old Phoon Ah Leong and his 56-year-old mother Hu Yuen Keng were both murdered by another hawker operating at the same hawker centre, 35-year-old Haw Tua Tau, who used a hand scraper to stab the mother–son pair to their deaths. The murders were committed as a result of Haw being angered that the tables were not being cleaned properly and the prior quarrels Haw had with the victims over the cleaning of tables.
On 5 December 1974, at Kramat Road off Orchard Road, 22-year-old Wong Thng Kiat, the operator of a call-girl syndicate, was stabbed to death after he got into a fight with another man who used a knife to stab him, and the fight arose from a quarrel over a missing gold bracelet. Within a few days, the killer, 21-year-old Tay Eng Whatt, was arrested and charged with murder. On 23 July 1976, Tay was found guilty and sentenced to hang for the murder, after the trial court rejected his defence that he killed Wong as a result of a fight and self-defence. Tay's appeals were later dismissed by both the Singaporean Court of Appeal and Privy Council in London, and on 29 June 1979, Tay was put to death in Changi Prison.
On 13 November 1985, 33-year-old Indonesian fish merchant Nurdin Nguan Song was murdered at a hotel along Waterloo Street, Singapore. Nurdin died after he was slashed and stabbed repeatedly by two men, who were revealed to have been paid by Nurdin's business rival to attack him. Between 1988 and 1992, the two murderers were arrested after spending several years on the run from the police, and charged with murder. One of them, a Malaysian named Loh Yoon Seong, was found guilty of murdering Nurdin and sentenced to death, while the other, a Singaporean named Tan Swee Hoon, pleaded guilty to manslaughter and for having killed Nurdin and committed an armed robbery while on the run, Tan was jailed for 23 years and given 24 strokes of the cane.
On 14 January 2006, at Sungai Petani in Kedah, Malaysia, 24-year-old Chee Gaik Yap, a Chinese Malaysian who was last seen jogging with her sister, went missing and she was found dead nine hours later with multiple stab wounds all over her body. Evidence showed that Chee had been abducted, raped, sodomized and in the end, murdered by her attacker, who was not caught until six years later, when the suspect was arrested at Kuala Lumpur International Airport after arriving from Perth.
Between 2009 and 2012, Rabidin Satir, nicknamed "Rambo Bentong", is suspected of committing several murders in Bentong, Pahang, Malaysia, although only two victims were confirmed. On 8 March 2009, Rabidin intruded the home of a 17-year-old schoolgirl Annie Kok Yin Cheng, raping her before he slit her throat, killing her on the spot. Three years later, on 3 November 2012, Rabidin battered a 31-year-old forestry department employee Khairul Hazri Jamaludin to death with his homemade rifle.
On 7 October 2000, 34-year-old Hanafi Mat Hassan, a bus driver previously charged for property offences and rape, attacked a female passenger on his bus, raping and murdering her at a secluded area near Bukit Tinggi, Klang in Selangor, Malaysia. The corpse of the victim, 24-year-old computer engineer Noor Suzaily Mukhtar, was later found at a construction site, and autopsy reports confirmed that she was raped and sodomized before her death via strangulation. Hanafi was arrested and charged with murder weeks after the crime. Hanafi was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death in April 2002 and additionally given a 20-year jail term with 12 strokes of the cane for rape. Hanafi's appeals were dismissed and he was hanged on 19 December 2008.
On 1 March 2012, in Johor, Malaysia, four-year-old Nurul Nadirah Abdullah, better known by her nickname Dirang, was abducted before she was raped and murdered by her captor at an oil plantation in Bandar Seri Alam, Masai. The burnt remains of Dirang, who was three months away from her fifth birthday, was eventually found at the plantation a week after her disappearance. The crime and its brutality caused shock to the public at the time it happened.
On 21 October 2013, in Selangor, Malaysia, 15-year-old Ng Yuk Tim, a cosplay enthusiast, went missing after she last departed her home to meet a male friend for planning an upcoming cosplay event. Although the male acquaintance, Poon Wai Hong, told the police that he last dropped Ng off at a nearby LRT station after they met each other in his house, the police still considered him as a suspect and he eventually confessed that he killed Ng inside his house at Kampung Cempaka, Kelana Jaya, and stuffed her body inside a suitcase before abandoning it in Kota Kemuning, Shah Alam.
On 30 August 2010, in Banting, Selangor, Malaysia, 47-year-old cosmetics millionaire Datuk Sosilawati Lawiya and her three companions – bank officer Noorhisham Mohamad, lawyer Ahmad Kamil Abdul Karim, and her driver Kamaruddin Shamsuddin – had all went missing. The four missing people were later found to have been murdered and had their bodies burnt by a lawyer named N. Pathmanabhan and another three accomplices. The remains of Sosilawati and the three men were later found at a farm in Tanjung Sepat, which belonged to Pathmanabhan. Pathmanabhan and his three farm hands – T. Thilaiyalagan, R. Matan and R. Kathavarayan – were all arrested and charged with murder based on circumstantial evidence and without the bodies of the victims in this case.
On the night of 23 April 1992, at a bungalow in Jalan Turi, Kuala Lumpur, the capital city of Malaysia, an Indian-American family and their maid were attacked by their security guard. Although the matriarch of the family managed to escape the onslaught, the family's two sons – Arjun Talwar and Kabir Talwar – and their Filipino maid Natalia Fernandes were brutally murdered by the guard, Ariffin Agas, who was arrested on the same day of the mass murder. Ariffin, who claimed that the victims were killed by a group of three Chinese men and denied all the charges, was found guilty of murdering the three victims and sentenced to death in March 1994. Ariffin's appeals were dismissed and he was hanged on 27 December 2002.
On 12 November 2003, 59-year-old Hans Herzog, a German-born Australian businessman, was found dead with multiple slash and stab wounds on his body at his residence at USJ, Subang Jaya in Kuala Lumpur, the capital city of Malaysia. Herzog, whose wife was Malaysian, was said to have been killed by two teenage boys allegedly hired by his two teenage stepdaughters, who resented him for alleged domestic abuse. The four teenagers were arrested and charged with murder.
Between 21 and 22 May 2017, 20-year-old Zulfarhan Osman Zulkarnain, a military cadet officer of National Defence University of Malaysia, was relentlessly tortured and scalded with a steam iron at the university's hostel by his fellow students over a stolen laptop, and died from multiple injuries at Serdang Hospital on 1 June 2017. A total of 18 students, all male, were arrested and out of these 18 suspects, six of them were charged with murder and assault while the remaining 12 were charged with assaulting and hurting Zulfarhan. A 19th suspect was originally charged with causing hurt to the victim but was acquitted without having his defence being called.
On 7 November 2018, in Selangor, Malaysia, 11-month-old Nur Muazara Ulfa Mohammad Zainal, better known by her nickname Zara, was sodomized and raped by her babysitter's husband Hazmi Majid at Pangsapuri Sri Cempaka, Bandar Baru Bangi, and she died two days later at Serdang Hospital due to injuries caused by lethal blunt force trauma. Hazmi was arrested following police investigations and therefore charged with murder and rape. It was uncovered during police investigations that Hazmi offered to help bathe Zara on the day in question, but he took the chance to sexually assault the baby before killing her.
On 19 September 2019, at her flat at Jalan Tasik Tambahan, Ampang in the Malaysian state of Selangor, 85-year-old Wong Chooi was found dead by her son, and post-mortem examinations revealed that Wong was raped and sodomized before she was murdered. The killer was later identified as K. Sathiaraj, a homeless man and former lorry attendant who was previously jailed for drug and property offences, and he was arrested and charged with raping, sodomizing and murdering Wong a month after the crime. Sathiaraj, who was 27 at the time of the offence, was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death in August 2022, in addition to a 13-year jail term and five strokes of the cane for the second charge of rape. Sathiaraj's appeal was dismissed by the Court of Appeal in February 2024.
On 4 July 2014, in Johor, Malaysia, 54-year-old millionaire Yong Boon Cheong went missing after he was last seen at a coffeeshop. About 24 hours after his wife reported him missing, Yong's burnt body was discovered at an oil palm estate near Kampung Seri Paya in Batu Pahat, and the police eventually arrested two men, who both allegedly killed Yong along Jalan Skudai, Danga Bay, Johor Bahru after assaulting him at the shop and bringing him into their car. The two men – ship cleaner Izwanuddin Kasim and his Singaporean friend Noriskandar Zainal Yahya – were both charged with murder, but after the end of trial proceedings in 2017, Noriskandar was sentenced to eight years' jail after pleading guilty to abetting Izwanuddin to dispose of the body, but Izwanuddin was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death. Izwanuddin's appeals were dismissed between 2019 and 2021, and he is currently on death row awaiting execution.