Kho Jabing to be executed next Friday

PETALING JAYA: Malaysian Kho Jabing (pic), who was convicted of murder in Singapore in 2008, will be executed next Friday.

His sister Jumai Kho said that she received a letter from the Singapore Prison Service on Thursday that the execution was scheduled for May 20.

She said that they would have to accept Singapore’s laws and the fact that her brother will be executed.

“A lot of people have tried their best to stop the execution but the country’s laws cannot be changed. That is the will of God,” she told the Star Online on Friday.

Jumai said that she and her mother would be going to Singapore this weekend.

“If there is luck, who knows the execution can still be avoided at the last moment. It’s not easy but we have to accept it. We have tried our best,” she added.  

We Believe in Second Chances founder Kirsten Han told the Star Online that they were trying to assess their options in a bid to stop the execution.

A bid to commute a death sentence at Singapore's Court of Appeal failed last month.

Jabing, 31, from Ulu Baram, Sarawak was found guilty of killing a Chinese construction worker with a tree branch back in 2008 during a robbery attempt.

He was scheduled to be executed on Nov 6 last year but received a stay the day before, after his lawyer filed a motion raising points of law about the way the case was handled.

Jabing was sentenced to death in 2010 but in August 2013, following revisions to Singapore’s mandatory death penalty laws, the High Court sentenced him to life and 24 strokes of the cane instead.

The prosecution challenged the decision before the Court of Appeal, which again sentenced Jabing to death in a 3-2 majority decision earlier this year.

On Oct 19, Singapore president Tony Tan rejected a clemency petition before a stay of execution by the Court of Appeal.

In 2013, the Singapore government amended the mandatory death penalty that gave judges the discretion to choose between death and life imprisonment with caning for murder, as well as certain cases of drug trafficking.