PUTRAJAYA, Oct 21 — The Court of Appeal here today set five days, beginning February 9 next year, to hear the appeals brought by a former lawyer and his employees who were convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of cosmetic millionaire Datuk Sosilawati Lawiya and her three aides four years ago.
A three-member panel chaired by Datuk Aziah Ali also ordered the defence counsel and the prosecution to file their respective written submissions by January 26 next year.
Justice Aziah, who presided on the panel with Justice Datuk Abdul Aziz Abdul Rahim and Datuk Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat, also fixed November 13 this year to hear N. Pathmanabhan’s application to amend his petition of appeal.
She also instructed Pathmanabhan’s counsel to file the application before November 6 this year.
Earlier, the panel allowed the applications by T. Thilaiyalagan and R. Kathavarayan for extension of time to respectively filed their petition of appeal on or before November 30 this year.
On May 23, last year, Pathmanabhan, 44, and farmhands Thilaiyalagan, 22, R. Matan, 23, and Kathavarayan, 34, were found guilty and sentenced to death for the murder of Sosilawati, 47, her driver Kamaruddin Shamsuddin, 44, bank officer Noorhisham Mohamad, 38, and lawyer Ahmad Kamil Abdul Karim, 32.
They were found guilty by the High Court in Shah Alam of committing the offence at Lot 2001, Jalan Tanjong Layang, Tanjung Sepat, in Banting between 8.30pm and 9.45pm on August 30, 2010.
In his judgment, High Court Judge Datuk Akhtar Tahir concluded that land matters figured as the key motive in the murder of Sosilawati for the reason of the inability of Pathmanabhan to honour the cheque issued to Sosilawati.
He said based on information given, the police discovered a burnt patch at the back of the farm and, on digging the burnt spot, the police unearthed bones, whereby some of the bones were later confirmed by the expert to be human bones that were charred, showing they had been burnt to a very high degree of temperature.
Akhtar also said further investigations at the farm revealed an area with the presence of blood spots and a cricket bat with traces of blood and an analysis of the blood by the chemist showed it matched that of some members of Sosilawati and company.
Lawyers Gurbachan Singh, Amer Hamzah Arshad and Amir Abdul Rani represented Thilaiyalagan, Matan and Kathavarayan, respectively.
Amer Hamzah also appeared on behalf of Pathmanabhan’s lawyer, Manjeet Singh Dhillon, while deputy public prosecutor Idham Abdul Ghani appeared for the prosecution. — Bernama
