KOTA TINGGI, April 27 — A 71-year-old farmer was charged at a Magistrates’ Court here for the fatal shooting involving two men and a woman at a restaurant last week.

The accused Lim Lian nodded his head after the charges were read out by an interpreter in Mandarin before Magistrate Nurkhalida Farhana Abu Bakar.

No plea was recorded as murder cases fall under the High Court’s jurisdiction.

According to the charge sheet, Lim is accused of shooting dead two men, identified as Wong Poh Soon, 61, and Chen Kwai Hwa, 64, together with a Vietnamese woman, Tran Thi Trang, 37, at a restaurant at Jalan Delima in Taman Kota Jaya here at about 1.30pm on April 19.

He was charged under Section 302 of the Penal Code for murder. 

The offence is punishable by the death penalty or 30 to 40 years in prison and a minimum 12 strokes of the cane.

The prosecution was conducted by Deputy Public Prosecutor Eizlan Azhar, while counsel Belinda Low represented the accused.

No bail was offered as murder is a non-bailable offence.

The court fixed May 13 for mention, pending the transfer of the case to the High Court.

It was reported on April 19 that three people were killed in a shooting outside a food outlet in Kota Jaya here.

The suspect, identified as a local, had allegedly shot the victims using a Benelli shotgun at 1.40pm. 

He was later arrested about 200m from the scene of incident and was later remanded for seven days before being charged. 

Police later confirmed that the suspect had a valid firearms license for the shotgun based on his agricultural needs.

Police believe that the incident was due to a RM50,000 debt owed to the suspect.