Gopal Sri Ram JCA:

[1] There are two appeals before us. One of them is Criminal Appeal No A-05-52-99. We will refer to the appellant in that appeal as the first accused. The other is Criminal Appeal No A-05-56-99 in which we will refer to the appellant as the second accused. Both appeals were taken together In the court below the first and second accused together with one Kumaresan (now at liberty) were jointly tried on four charges of murder Surprisingly, Kumaresan (the third acussed) was acquitted at the close of the prosecution's case despite the rather compelling evidence that was led against him. Unfortunately the order acquitting him was not appealed against. The first and second accused were, however, called upon to enter their defence and were convicted on all four charges. Each appealed against his conviction and sentence. At the close of argument on these appeals, we dismissed them. In giving reasons for our decision we are spared from regurgitating the facts in detail or narrating the evidence at length as the learned judge (whose judgment has been reported in [1999] 3 MLRH 875, [2000] 1 MLJ 274) has handled them admirably.

[2] The case presented by the prosecutio