Court revokes death penalty in Malaysian student murder case, orders retrial

Taipei, April 18 (CNA) Taiwan's Supreme Court on Friday revoked the death sentence of Liang Yu-chih (梁育誌), who was convicted of murdering a Malaysian university student in 2020, and ordered a new trial.

The court said the most recent ruling by the Taiwan High Court Kaohsiung Branch, issued in January, failed to thoroughly examine the evidence and did not provide sufficient reasoning. The case can still be appealed.

This is the first case to reaffirm a death sentence after Taiwan's Constitutional Court ruled in September 2024 that capital punishment is conditionally constitutional.

The crime occurred on Oct. 28, 2020, when Liang abducted the victim -- a Malaysian student studying in Tainan -- while she was walking alone near her university.

He raped, beat, and then strangled her to death, took her belongings, and dumped her body in a mountainous area of Kaohsiung's Alian District, according to the high court.

The court said Liang had acted with premeditation, lying in wait with a rope that he used to kill the 24-year-old victim with brutal force.

She suffered multiple internal injuries, and the court upheld the death sentence based on the cruelty of the crime and the high risk of reoffending.

However, the Supreme Court said the retrial misapplied the law by treating the incident as a single offense of rape and murder. It should have been prosecuted as multiple crimes -- robbery, sexual assault and murder -- with separate penalties.

The court also questioned Liang's intent, noting records suggest he may have initially planned only sexual assault before deciding to commit murder.

Additionally, the trial court failed to consider a prison counselor's assessment that Liang had potential for rehabilitation, which may have impacted sentencing, it said.

Liang was first sentenced to death by the Ciaotou District Court in March 2022 for rape, intentional killing, and robbery.

The high court upheld the verdict in March 2023.

In June 2023, the Supreme Court ordered a retrial of the rape and homicide charges, citing flaws in the original ruling.