A FORMER pub bouncer escaped the gallows when Court of Appeal in Kuching today unanimously commuted his death sentence for murder to 18 years in prison for culpable homicide, for killing his girlfriend in 2016.

Justice Zabariah Mohd Yusof, who chaired the three-member bench along with Judges Suraya Othman and Kamaludin Mohd Said, said Miri High Court had erred in sentencing Nasir Ramli to death.

As such, the appellate court substituted Nasir’s penalty from one of murder under Section 302 of the Penal Code to Section 304(a) for culpable homicide not amounting to murder.

Nasir’s sentence begins from the date of his arrest on August 24, 2016.

Nasir was represented by Ranbir Singh.

The High Court in Miri convicted Nasir of murdering his 25 year-old girlfriend Norfisa Othman between 11pm on June 5 and 1am on June 6 on Jalan Dato Permaisuri in Permyjaya.

The prosecution had claimed during the trial that Nasir had used an iron rod, recovered in his house, to bludgeon Norfisa to death.

A post-mortem showed she died of severe head injury from being beaten with a hard, blunt object.

Nasir fled and hid in Kuching after the killing, before he was arrested in a house in the urban village of Semariang Jaya. – August 26, 2019.