Malaysian murder convict hanged in Singapore: police
A Malaysian murder convict was hanged in Singapore Friday, 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. 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 Friday, but was granted a brief last-minute reprieve after his lawyer filed a challenge. The Court of Appeal heard the latest plea Friday 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. Singapore, which has rejected calls by rights groups to abolish the death penalty, executed four people in 2015, one for murder and three for drug offences, according to prison statistics. Malaysia also uses capital punishment, executing murderers and drug traffickers by hanging, a system which, like that in Singapore, dates back to British colonial rule.
