JUDGMENT

Abdul Aziz Mohamad FCJ:

[1] The appellant was convicted at the High Court in Shah Alam, in the State of Selangor, of the rape and murder of Canny Ong Lay Kian ("the victim") and was sentenced to twenty years' imprisonment and whipping of ten strokes for the rape, and to death for the murder. According to the charges, the offences were committed between 1 and 5am on 14 June 2003 at Batu 7, Jalan Klang Lama, in the District of Petaling Jaya, in the State of Selangor.

[2] The victim went missing at about 10.45pm the previous evening of 13 June 2003 at the Bangsar Shopping Complex ("the BSC") in the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur. Her mother lodged a report of her disappearance at 11.59pm at the Jalan Travers Police Station in Kuala Lumpur, Travers Report 003279/03. Her remains were found around noon on 17 June 2003 at a highway construction site at Batu 7, Jalan Klang Lama, in the District of Petaling Jaya. The report of the discovery was Petaling Jaya Report 7487/03. The appellant was arrested at his house on 20 June 2003 between 5 and 6.15am by officers from the Petaling Jaya District Police Headquarters ("IPD Petaling Jaya").

[3] During the trial, besides other evidence, the prosecution sought to introduce a confession made by the appellant to a Magistrate and recorded by him under s. 115 of the Criminal Procedure Code . After a trial within a trial to determine the admissibility of the confession, in which the appellant gave evidence, the learned trial judge found that the confession was made voluntarily and admitted it in evidence. After considering the evidence adduced by the prosecution, including the confession, the trial judge found that the prosecution had made out a prima facie case of rape and murder against the appellant and called upon him to enter upon his defence, but he elected to remain silent and offered no evidence in his defence. He was thereupon convicted and sentenced as aforesaid. He now appeals to this Court.

[4] The foremost ground in this appeal is that the trial judge erred in law in admitting the confession as one made voluntarily. This question will be dealt with first. The reasons advanced by the appellant's counsel in this appeal for contending that the confession was inadmissible necessitates an examination of the relevant evidence in the trial within a trial, a task that the trial judge, as appears from his judgment, undertook only cursorily and without attending to the specific reasons advanced.

[5] As has been said, the appellant was arrested at his house between 5 and 6.15am on 20 June 2003. He was brought to the IPD Petaling Jaya, straight to the Bilik URJ (Unit Risikan Jenayah or Criminal Investigation Unit), which actually comprised several rooms. That was before 7am. According to the police evidence, he was placed under the charge of the Investigation Officer, P/ASP Muniandy, at 9am. Until then he had been under the charge of P/Supt Ahmad Razil, the head of the Criminal Investigation Department at the IPD Petaling Jaya, who had led the police team that had gone to the appellant's house. The appellant alleged that during the period until he was handed over to Muniandy he was, at different times or in different places and rooms in the Bilik URJ, subjected to various forms of pressure and threat, in order to make him confess, by someone or other among the team of officers who had gone to his house. Where physical mishandling was concerned, the worst that the appellant alleged was that Ahmad Razil delivered several kicks to his face and genitals and crushed his face with a foot, and that one of the kicks resulted in his head knocking against the side of a steel cabinet as he fell. Those allegations were of course denied by the officers concerned. The evidence on both sides as to what happened in this phase needs not be set out in detail because we do not intend to make a finding as to the truth of the appellant's allegations. It is, however, a fact that there was no evidence of any injur