KLANG: The High Court has scheduled September 29 to confirm the status of a representation filed by a young man charged with murdering his pregnant girlfriend two years ago.
Judge Norliza Othman set the date after defence counsel Muhammad Nor Tamrin raised the representation status issue during proceedings initially scheduled as final case management.
Muhammad Nor informed the court that his 22-year-old client Muhammad Fakrul Aiman Sajali sought to change his plea from not guilty to guilty through the representation.
The defence counsel confirmed that no response had yet been received from the Attorney General’s Chambers regarding the representation matter.
Deputy public prosecutor Nurul Ashiqin Zulkifli had earlier requested a new date to review the status of the representation.
Judge Norliza advised the accused to carefully consider his decision given the mandatory death penalty under Section 302 of the Penal Code.
The judge noted that the court could not guarantee any sentence reduction based on such a representation.
Judge Norliza directly addressed the accused regarding maintaining a guilty plea even if the court determined death by hanging as the deserved sentence after examining case facts and witness testimony.
She elaborated that even before mandatory death penalty abolition, courts lacked authority to accept guilty pleas to capital charges without prosecution agreement to reduce them.
The court had previously scheduled the trial to commence on February 23, 2026, with subsequent hearing dates set through April 2026.
The court granted an application on May 15 for Muhammad Fakrul Aiman to undergo psychiatric assessment for mental health evaluation.
He was charged on June 1, 2024, with murdering 21-year-old Nur Anisah Abdul Wahab under Section 302 of the Penal Code.
The offence allegedly occurred on Jalan Sungai Limau between 8.30 pm on May 22 and 8.00 am on May 23, 2023.
Media reports indicated the brutal murder resulted from a misunderstanding where the restaurant waitress victim was stabbed, slashed and set on fire in a palm oil plantation. – Bernama