PUTRAJAYA: Three men convicted of the murder of cosmetics millionaire Datuk Sosilawati Lawiya and three others 14 years ago remain on death row after the Federal Court denied two of them a review of their sentence.
A three-judge panel chaired by Chief Justice Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat unanimously rejected the review applications by former lawyer N. Pathmanabhan, 54, and farm hand T. Thilaiyalagan, 33, to set aside their death sentences.
Another co-accused, farm hand R. Kathavarayan, 44, who also faces the gallows for the same offence, withdrew his application.
The apex court subsequently struck out his application and upheld his death sentence.
“In exercising our judicial discretion and having regard to the facts of the case, we dismiss the review applications. The death sentence is maintained,” Tengku Maimun said yesterday.
The other judges on the bench were Justices Nordin Hassan and Abu Bakar Jais.
The three filed the review applications in a bid to have their death sentences commuted to imprisonment following the Mandatory Death Penalty Abolition Act 2023, which came into effect on July 4 last year.
Earlier, the Federal Court heard from Kathavarayan’s lawyer Latheefa Koya that her client wanted to withdraw his review application.
Lawyers Manjeet Singh Dhillon and Amer Hamzah Arshad, who represented Pathmanabhan and Thilaiyalagan respectively, asked the court to consider commuting the death sentence to jail time.
Deputy public prosecutor Datuk Mohd Dusuki Mokhtar, however, pressed for the death sentence to be maintained, saying four lives were lost in the brutal crime.
In September 2010, Sosilawati, the founder of the Nouvelle Visages cosmetics line, went missing after leaving her house in Gombak to discuss a land deal with her three aides in Banting.
More than a week later, police said they were murdered and burnt, and their ashes were thrown into a river near a farm owned by Pathmanabhan.
On May 23, 2013, the Shah Alam High Court sentenced Pathmanabhan, Kathavarayan, Thilaiyalagan and another farm hand R. Matan to death after finding them guilty of murdering Sosilawati, 47; bank officer Noorhisham Mohamad, 38; lawyer Ahmad Kamil Abdul Karim, 32; and Sosilawati’s driver Kamaruddin Shamsuddin, 44.
They were found guilty of committing the crime at Lot 2001, Jalan Tanjong Layang, Tanjung Sepat, in Banting, Selangor, between 8.30pm and 9.45pm on Aug 30, 2010.
On Dec 4, 2015, all four failed in their appeals at the Court of Appeal. They subsequently filed an appeal to the Federal Court.
On March 16, 2017, Pathmanabhan, Thilaiyalagan, and Kathavarayan remained on death row after their appeals were rejected again.
Matan, however, was successful in his appeal and acquitted due to “insufficient evidence” against him.
