Singapore to Execute Man from Sarawak, Malaysia, on May 20: Family
Kho Jabing of Sarawak, Malaysia is to be executed on May 20 after a judicial panel at the Singapore Supreme Court (shown here) upheld his conviction, March 29, 2015.
AFP
The government of the eastern Malaysian state of Sarawak has exhausted efforts to save a local man from being executed by Singapore next week for a murder conviction, the chief minister told BenarNews on Friday.
The execution date for Kho Jabing, 32, has been set for May 20 but Sarawak officials were unable to persuade Singaporean authorities to grant the man from Ulu Baram clemency for killing a construction worker in the city-state eight years ago, Chief Minister Adenan Satem said.
“We have sent representatives to secure leniency and even written to the Singaporean authorities, but we have failed to change their verdict,” he told Benar.
Kho’s family received a letter from the Singapore Prison Service on Thursday saying that his execution was scheduled to take place next Friday.
“I can’t believe that they are going to hang my brother on my birthday,” Kho’s younger sister, 27-year-old Jumai, told BenarNews.
In 2010, the Singapore High Court in found Kho guilty of using a tree branch to kill the construction worker, Cao Ruyin, during a robbery attempt in 2008.
Since then, Kho’s family pleaded with the Sarawak government to appeal to the Singaporean authorities to change the death sentence to life imprisonment.
Jumai and her mother are expected to leave for Singapore on Saturday, hoping they can persuade the Singapore government to change Jabing’s death sentence.
“I am still hoping that some miracle would come to our family. All we ask for is a life sentence so that we could at least meet him every now and then. I just don’t want to bring my brother home in a coffin,” Jumai said.
Kho had been scheduled to be executed on Nov. 6, 2015, but received a stay after his lawyer filed a motion challenging the verdict. On April 5, the Supreme Court upheld the death sentence and lifted the stay of execution.
In August 2013, following revisions to Singapore’s mandatory death penalty laws, a court sentenced him to life and 24 strokes of the cane instead. However, the prosecution challenged the decision and the top court changed the sentence to death.
