Former Sepang MP Hanipa Maidin said it was hard to see how the widely reported death of Amirul Hafiz Omar, 33, could be considered as intentional.

He said a charge under Sections 304 or 304A of the Penal Code, or under the relevant provision of the Road Transport Act, would have been more appropriate.

Section 304 deals with culpable homicide not amounting to murder, while Section 304A covers causing death through a rash or negligent act.

“While DUI is a serious offence globally, most jurisdictions typically prosecute fatal accidents as ‘vehicular manslaughter’ or ‘negligent homicide’ rather than murder.

“With all due respect to the attorney-general, the decision to pursue a murder charge appears to be excessive and overly harsh in my view,” he said in a statement.

Hanipa acknowledged that the case had garnered public interest, especially since Amirul was a father of three who worked two jobs to support his family.

The Amanah man nonetheless maintained that a charge of culpable homicide not amounting to murder would be more prudent and just, rather than murder.

On April 1, laboratory assistant R Saktygaanapathy, 28, was charged with murder over Amirul’s death at Jalan Raya Barat, Klang, on March 29.

He was also charged with self-administering benzodiazepine and cannabis, and pleaded guilty.

Attorney-General Dusuki Mokhtar has defended the decision to charge Saktygaanapathy with murder, pointing to Section 300 of the Penal Code, which lays out the defintion of murder.

Dusuki particularly cited Section 300(d), which states that a person is deemed to have committed murder if they commit an act despite knowing that it is “so imminently dangerous that it must in all probability cause death or such bodily injury as is likely to cause death”.