A three-judge panel headed by Chief Justice Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat allowed Yan Wai Seng’s application for the death penalty to be replaced with a jail sentence, Bernama reported.

The case was brought up under a 2023 law abolishing the mandatory death penalty and allowing death sentences to be substituted with jail sentences. Yan’s jail sentence will run from the date he was arrested (May 1, 2007).

Yan, now 36, was also sentenced to 12 strokes of the cane for murder and five strokes for kidnapping.

Yan and another man, Chew Wai Keong, were sentenced to death by the High Court in Ipoh in 2012 after being found guilty of the murder of Teh Wai Toong, 31, in Ipoh in April 2007. They were also sentenced to death for kidnapping Teh for a RM200,000 ransom.

The Federal Court also commuted the death sentence imposed on businessman Loh Yoon Fatt, 52, for the murder of a business consultant Lam Siew Kong, 59, on Christmas Day 15 years ago. Lam was killed with a steering wheel lock at a restaurant car park in Ipoh on Dec 25, 2009.