CAUGHT in an unhappy marriage, a young woman manipulated her teenage lover into killing her husband of six years.

On Monday, Aniza Essa, 25, who initially faced the gallows for abetting the teen to commit murder, was jailed for nine years after pleading guilty to a lesser charge in the High Court.

The charge against Aniza was reduced - from murder to manslaughter - because a psychiatrist found that she had a moderate depressive episode, which substantially impaired her mental responsibility for the offence.

The teenager, Muhammad Nasir Abdul Aziz, now 17, remains accused of murder and has yet to stand trial. Prosecutors on Monday pressed for life sentence for Aniza for the 'cold-blooded' killing but Justice Chan Seng Onn was not persuaded, although he acknowledged the gravity of her crime,

In sentencing Aniza, the judge said: 'This is another one of those sad and unfortunate cases which come before the court.' He added: 'I note that you psychologically manipulated a young, 16-year-old boy and instigated him to kill your husband.'

The judge also noted that there were many opportunities for her to stop the whole matter.

Justice Chan said he hoped she would be a good mother to her two sons - aged two and five - after her release from prison. Aniza wept on hearing the sentence.

The bloodied body of Aniza's husband, 29-year-old disc jockey Manap Sarlip, was found in front of their 16th floor flat at Whampoa Drive on July 1 last year. An autopsy found a total of nine stab wounds on Mr Manap's body. He bled to death from a chest wound.

Nasir's trial is expected to start next week. If convicted, he faces an indefinite stay behind bars, instead of the mandatory death penalty, because he was under 18 at the time.

Read the full story in Tuesday's edition of The Straits Times.