THE Malaysian death row prisoner in Singapore who was supposed to be executed earlier this morning was given last-minute reprieve by the Supreme Court just hours before he was due to serve his sentence.
Kho Jabing, a convicted murderer from Sarawak, was to be hanged early Friday but the Court granted a stay on his execution after accepting an appeal by his lawyer, Jeannette Aruldoss Chong, late Thursday.
The appeal, to be heard by the Court of Appeal later Friday, will be Kho’s last hope. If the appeal is rejected the court will set a new date for execution, which in Singapore is by hanging.
It was earlier reported that Kho Jabing exhausted all legal avenues following an appeal by prosecutors to overturn the 2013 sentence to life imprisonment and 24 strokes of the cane last year.
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Last month, the appeals court in Singapore threw out his 11th-hour bid to quash the death sentence.
Kho was accused of using a tree branch to assault and rob a construction worker in 2008. The worker died from multiple skull fractures and Kho was convicted and sentenced to death in 2010.
According to the Straits Times, the lawyer had earlier failed to get a stay before Judicial Commissioner Kannan Ramesh after hours of arguments in chambers.
However, she managed to meet the 11pm deadline to file an appeal.
With the reprieve, Kho will not be hanged until the apex court convenes to hear the appeal, the paper reported.
Additional reporting by the Associated Press
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