Hisham Mat Yunus’s jail term will, however, commence from June 24, 2013, the day police arrested him.

“You are lucky to be spared the death sentence,” Justice Kamaludin Said, who led a three-member Court of Appeal bench, said in imposing the custodial sentence.

Justices Hadhariah Syed Ismail and Ahmad Zaidi Ibrahim were also on the panel that heard Hisham’s appeal against the murder conviction.

At the outset of today’s proceeding, lawyer Hisyam Teh Poh Teik informed the bench that the Attorney-General’s Chambers had responded positively to a representation made to substitute the murder conviction to culpable homicide not amounting to murder.

Deputy public prosecutor Ng Sie Wee confirmed this.

On Feb 22, 2019, Hisham, who has three wives, was sentenced to death by the Shah Alam High Court for the murder of Umar Haiqal Hazlee.

He committed the offence at the Commonwealth Forest Park and Resort near Gombak between May 9, 2013 and June 2, 2013.

Today, he pleaded guilty to the substitute charge which carried a maximum 30-year jail term.

In mitigation, Hisyam, who was assisted by Badrul Hisham Sani and Low Wei Loke, requested a 15-year jail term from the date of Hisham’s arrest.

“The appellant has three wives and five schoolgoing children,” he said.

Ng said public interest demanded that a deterrent sentence be imposed as a young child had lost his life.

The facts revealed that Hisham had befriended the boy’s mother – a policewoman and a divorcee – through a social media platform.

Apart from the son, the woman had another child, who was four years old, in 2013.

The mother told the trial court that during a stay in a hotel, Hisham did not like her having a bath together with the boy as he said it was against Islamic religious teachings. Instead, he took over that duty.

However, the mother testified that she heard her son crying while he was inside the bathroom.

During the stay, Hisham also “soaked” the boy in a pail filled with ice water and had left him alone all night in the bathroom, the court had heard.

The mother said the accused repeatedly assaulted the boy on the pretext of removing an evil spirit in his body.

On June 3, she said, she saw Hisham performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation on her son who was lying motionless.

On the same day, the woman, her daughter and the accused drove in a car to bury the body in a jungle at Bukit Brinchang, Cameron Highlands.

About two weeks later, the woman and her daughter escaped from the hotel room after the accused had gone shopping.

She and her daughter returned to her hometown in Sungai Petani where she lodged a police report about the death of her son.

Hisham was arrested and later led police to the boy’s body.

The post-mortem report stated that the cause of death could not be ascertained as the body was highly decomposed.