Murderer saved from the gallows

Murderer saved from the gallows

A Bangladeshi worker convicted of murder escaped the gallows when he was on Tuesday sentenced to life in jail.

Kamrul Hasan Abdul Quddus had killed his Indonesian girlfriend, Miss Yulia Afriyanti, 25, and stashed her naked body in a cardboard box at the then-uncompleted Viz@Holland condo in Queensway in December 2007.

Kamrul, 40, is the fourth convicted murderer on death row to serve a life sentence instead of the death penalty.

From changes in the law this year, judges now have the discretion to impose either the death penalty or a life sentence for certain categories of murder.

At the re-sentencing on Tuesday, Kamrul was also sentenced to 10 strokes of the cane.

He had been charged with the murder of Miss Yulia, a maid, and was convicted in January 2010 and given the then mandatory death penalty.

Kamrul and Miss Yulia first met in 2005 at a party and became lovers. Miss Yulia planned to marry Kamrul but broke up with him in October 2007 after finding out that he was already married in Bangladesh and had two children.

She then became involved with a Filipino construction worker, Mr Joseph Guerzon Corpuz, then 27, after the break-up and was caught in a love triangle with Kamrul and Mr Corpuz.

In early December 2007, she told Mr Corpuz that she wanted to reconcile with her former boyfriend and that they had made plans to tie the knot.

She was believed to have been strangled by Kamrul after they had sex on the night of Dec 15, 2007.

He then removed her clothes, tore up her work permit and removed her belongings from his locker at his workplace before stashing her body in a cardboard box on the third floor of the uncompleted building.

Her body was found the next day.


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