Jabing Kho to hang after bid to commute sentence fails

SINGAPORE — After spending nearly five years in a roller-coaster court bid to escape the hangman’s noose, Jabing Kho’s fate was sealed on Tuesday (April 5), with the Court of Appeal scrubbing a stay of execution it had granted the Sarawakian at the eleventh hour five months ago.

As the five-judge court condemned him to the gallows with a unanimous decision that Kho’s defence had not produced new and compelling evidence to prove a miscarriage of justice, the 31-year-old put on a brave face, comforting his sobbing mother and sister before he was led away. His family members, including a young niece, declined to speak to the media.

Kho, who had carried out a fatal robbery with a fellow countryman in 2008, will be hanged at a date to be decided by President Tony Tan.

Kho and Galing Anak Kujat had attacked construction workers Cao Ruyin and Wu Jun near Geylang Drive while trying to rob them on Feb 17, 2008. Kho struck Cao on the head with a tree branch so hard that the victim sustained 14 fractures in his skull. He died six days later.

Kho’s roller-coaster court bid began in 2011 when he failed in his appeal against the mandatory death sentence, unlike his accomplice, whose conviction was reduced to that of robbery with hurt and got 18 years and six months’ jail with 19 strokes of the cane.

But Kho was spared the death penalty two years later when amendments to the mandatory death penalty regime kicked in, giving judges the discretion to impose life imprisonment and 24 strokes of the cane instead in some murder cases.

The prosecution appealed against Kho’s new sentence, arguing that he had shown “scant regard for human life”. In January last year, Kho was sentenced to death again in a rare 3-2 split decision by the Court of Appeal. His appeal for clemency was turned down in October.

But less than 24 hours before he was to hang, Kho’s lawyer Chandra Mohan K Nair secured a stay of execution by raising questions about the evidence presented during the trial.

On Tuesday, Kho’s latest bid was dismissed, with Judge of Appeal Chao Hick Tin ruling that the defence had produced very little new material, let alone compelling material, that would justify the “exceptional recourse” of a review of the death sentence handed down.

“The material he advanced fell far short of even showing that this court’s (earlier) decision was wrong, let alone demonstrably or blatantly wrong, which is the threshold which must be met in order for a review to lie,” he added.

Justice Chao also noted that the number of applications to the appellate court to revisit decisions has “increased dramatically” in recent years, using up scarce judicial resources. Of the 24 criminal motions filed with the Court of Appeal last year, 11 were applications — similar to Kho’s — to reopen concluded criminal appeals.

The court’s power to reopen cases is to be exercised only in exceptional circumstances, he added, citing new and compelling material that shows there had been a miscarriage of justice, or that a decision is wrong, tainted by fraud or is a breach of natural justice.

In Kho’s case, there was no such material, said Justice Chao.

“In our judgment, the present application is ... an attempt to re-litigate a matter which had already been fully argued and thoroughly considered.”