JUDGMENTBY: THOMSON CJ

In this case the appellant was tried at the Malacca Assizes for the murder of his mother-in-law Karimah at Kampong Tedong Merlimau in the Jasin District on 28th August, 1957. He was convicted and sentenced to death. Against that conviction he has now appealed.

On the evidence there was not and is not the slightest room for doubt that the appellant killed his mother-in-law. The only question before us in this appeal relates to the circumstances in which he killed her. At the trial there were three different versions of what lead up to the killing. There was the evidence of the dead womans daughter who was herself attacked and whose account stopped short of the actual killing. Then there was the version given by the appellant in a confession which he made to the Malacca Magistrate a day or two after the incident. And finally there was the version given by the appellant himself in evidence at his trial.

These three versions have one thing in common. All three go to show that there was a long history of domestic unhappiness on the part of the appellant and his wife which had probably been aggravated by the attitude of the dead woman in siding with her daught

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