Court rejects Canny Ong murder appeal

PUTRAJAYA: Former aircraft cabin cleaning supervisor Ahmad Najib Aris, who was convicted by the High Court for raping and murdering IT analyst Canny Ong four years ago, had his appeal dismissed by the Court of Appeal here yesterday. 

Court of Appeal Justices Abdul Aziz Mohamad, Mohd Ghazali Mohd Yusoff and Azmel Ma’amor unanimously confirmed the convictions and sentences of 31-year-old Ahmad Najib. 

Justices Abdul Aziz and Azmel have since been elevated to the Federal Court. 

Reading his 88-page judgment for three hours, Justice Abdul Aziz said there was no doubt Ahmad Najib had raped Ong on that fateful day. 

Ong had been “abducted by the appellant (Ahmad Najib), a total stranger, when engaging in the innocent activity of getting the parking ticket from the car for her mother,” he said. 

She was then driven in a “state of fear to the fateful destination by the appellant, who was intent on accomplishing his designs on her,” Justice Abdul Aziz added. 

He said he could not accept the defence’s argument that since the cause of death was unspecific, therefore the intention to cause the death was also uncertain, as it would depend on the actual cause of death. 

He said that whether the cause of Ong’s death was by strangulation, the infliction of an injury that caused internal bleeding or a combination of both, or whether it was by burning, it was Ahmad Najib who did to the deceased whatever it was that caused her death. 

“Viewing the evidence as a whole, including the fact that the appellant had raped the victim, there would be no basis for entertaining any probability that the appellant did what he did other than with the intention of causing the death of the victim. 

“The conviction for murder was therefore right,” he said. 

Justice Abdul Aziz said that of the circumstantial evidence set out, certain portions of it were “strong rays” while the others were “feeble rays” but the latter could not be disregarded as each piece of evidence was “an important strand in the entire fabric and serves to make up that fabric and to strengthen it.” 

“The evidence, when considered in its entirety, leads only to one conclusion: that it was the appellant, and no one else, who was responsible for what happened to the victim that night,” he said. 

On Feb 23, 2005, the Shah Alam High Court sentenced Ahmad Najib to death for raping and murdering Ong, 29, at the 11th kilometre of Jalan Klang Lama between 1am and 5am on June 14, 2003.