00:00The Court of Appeal has upheld the 16-year prison sentence of former IT employee Yu Wei-Liang
00:08for the death of bank manager Syed Mohammed Daniel Syed Shakir in a road rage incident
00:14on the North-South Expressway six years ago.
00:19A three-judge panel led by Datuk Cheh Mohammed Ruzima Ghazali unanimously rejected Yu's appeal
00:26against his conviction and sentence handed down by the Shah Alam High Court on December
00:317, 2023.
00:34The judge stated that the court takes the incident seriously to send a clear message
00:39to the public not to take the law into their own hands.
00:43The panel, which included Datuk Mohammed Zaini Mazlan and Datuk Azmi Arifin, also dismissed
00:49the prosecution's cross-appeal to reinstate a murder charge under Section 302 of the Penal
00:54Code, ruling that it lacked merit.
00:57Forty-seven-year-old Yu was sentenced to 16 years in prison starting from his arrest on
01:02August 10, 2019, after being found guilty of culpable homicide.
01:08Initially charged with murder, he was accused of killing 29-year-old Syed Mohammed Daniel
01:14at kilometre 293.6 of the Plus Highway, Kuala Lumpur-Seremban, between 1pm and 2pm on August
01:2210, 2019.
01:25During the cross-appeal, Deputy Public Prosecutor Ng Siu Wee argued that the High Court erred
01:31in convicting Yu of culpable homicide instead of a more severe charge.
01:37She cited Yu's testimony, in which he claimed he saw the victim rushing toward his car with
01:42a baseball bat, prompting him to shift gears and drive forward, hitting the victim.
01:47Yu stated he acted in self-defence to protect himself and his pregnant wife, who was in
01:53the vehicle.
01:54However, Ng contended that a video recording from the 19th prosecution witness, Yu's wife,
02:00showed that he was not acting in self-defence, but was instead angry and intended to
02:05teach the deceased a lesson.
02:08She maintained that the 16-year sentence was appropriate and not excessive.
02:13Meanwhile, Yu's lawyer, Datuk N Sivananthan, argued that the incident happened suddenly
02:19and without intent, urging the court to reduce the sentence to seven or eight years.
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