Appeals court upholds death sentence of six men convicted of murdering Kevin Morais

The Court of Appeal here yesterday upheld the death sentence of six men convicted of murdering deputy public prosecutor Datuk Anthony Kevin Morais nine years ago.

They are former pathologist Colonel Dr R. Kunaseegaran, 61; money lender S. Ravi Chandran, 53; and unemployed R. Dinishwaran, 32; A.K. Thinesh Kumar, 31; M. Vishwanath, 34; and S. Nimalan, 31.

A three-judge panel of Datuk Hadhariah Syed Ismail, Datuk Ahmad Zaidi Ibrahim and Datuk Azmi Ariffin unanimously dismissed the appeal filed by the six men to set aside the decision of the High Court on July 10, 2020, which convicted and sentenced them to death for the murder.

In the court’s decision, Judge Hadhariah said after examining all the grounds of judgment and the evidence presented in the High Court, the appellate court found that the High Court judge did not err in terms of law and facts.

“The conviction imposed by the High Court was correct,” she said.

Judge Hadhariah said the murder was carefully planned and the condition of the body when it was found showed the cruelty of all the accused.

“If killing the victim was not enough, the deceased’s car was also burned and his personal belongings were disposed of.

“This murder incident is categorised as extraordinary from an ordinary murder incident. Therefore, in our opinion, the punishment that commensurate the offence committed is death by hanging,” she said.

She also said that when Morais’ body was found, it was fully clothed but without shoes, and his hands tied behind his back with a tie.

“There are seven pressure marks or compression on the chest, shoulders and back of the body, which was placed in a sack in a fetal position. The sack was tied with iron wire and then put into the drum.

“Then, cement was poured into the drum barrel which was then dumped into a swamp area,” she said.

The judge said forensic experts testified that the cause of Morais’ death was due to suffocation.

She also said there was a common intention among all the accused to kill Morais because Ravi Chandran, Dinishwaran, Thinesh Kumar, Vishwanath and Nimalan were together during the deliberate collision between their vehicle and the deceased’s car.

Judge Hadhariah said Kunaseegaran was also involved based on the fact that he only smiled and advised fellow accused-turned-prosecution witness G. Gunasekaran to keep calm and not interfere in the affairs of the other accused when Gunasekaran told him about the blood flowing from the drum barrel.

Gunasekaran was initially accused of murdering Morais but the charge was later withdrawn after he pleaded guilty in the Sessions Court to the charge of disposing of Morais’ body, and was sentenced to two years in prison.

The prosecution then called Gunasekaran as a prosecution witness in the trial against all the accused.

“Kunaseegaran also showed a picture of the deceased’s burning car in his mobile phone to Gunasekaran and Kunaseegaran also said that he would bear the legal fees of the other accused because all the problems stemmed from him,” she said.

Judge Hadhariah said Kunaseegaran had a motive to kill Morais and the other accused were his agents.

On July 10, 2020, the High Court sentenced the six men to death after finding them guilty of killing Morais.