A cabby who hacked his unfaithful wife to death two years ago was yesterday saved from the gallows, when the Court of Appeal set aside his murder conviction.

The court overturned the decision of the High Court judge who had sentenced G. Krishnasamy Naidu to death in April after rejecting his defence of diminished responsibility.

Instead, Justice Choo Han Teck, Justice Tay Yong Kwang and Justice V.K. Rajah convicted him of culpable homicide not amounting to murder, which carries either life imprisonment or a maximum of 10 years in jail.

After he heard the verdict, delivered by Justice Choo, Krishnasamy, 44, buried his face in his hands and wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his prison jumpsuit.

Smiles broke out on faces of his family and friends, who shook one another’s hands. However, Krishnasamy’s children and his wife’s family were disappointed by the reprieve.

His 17-year-old son said yesterday: “ I wish he were dead.”

From the outset, Krishnasamy admitted killing his wife, Madam Chitrabathy Narayanasamy, 39 in front of her colleagues outside the Sony factory where she worked.

Madam Chitrabathy had a string of extra-marital affairs in their 20-year marriage.

During the trial, Krishnasamy’s lawyers relied on the findings of two government psychiatrists who had said he suffered from a mental illness known as morbid jealousy.

However, the trial judge, Justice Woo Bih Li, used a “three-stage test” to conclude that, in spite of his illness, he did not qualify for the defence of diminished responsibility.

He accepted that Krishnasamy was suffering from an abnormality of mind and that it was caused by morbid jealousy. But he found that the abnormality did not substantially impair his mental responsibility for his actions.

However, the Court of Appeal found that there was a lack of convincing reasons to support the trial judge’s conclusion.

The trial judge had said Krishnasamy’s planning and execution of the killing, as well as his awareness of the penalty for murder, showed that his mental responsibility was not diminished.

But Justice Choo said the trial judge appeared to have rejected consultant psychiatrist Dr. Stephen Phang’s evidence that a person with an abnormal mind was still capable of making and carrying out elaborate plans.

“When a person has already been determined to be suffering from an abnormality of mind in present circumstances, how does one determine what sort of conduct, and at which point that person’s action may be said to have been impaired, and when it has not?”

In this case, applying the three-stage test resulted in a serious incongruity, said Justice Choo.

Krishnasamy will have to appear in court in three weeks to be sentenced. The court rejected a request from his lawyer Mr. Peter Fernando that he be given eight weeks so that a new psychiatric report could be prepared.

Krishnasamy has been undergoing treatment for the past 28 months’, he said.

Mr. Fernando later told reporters: “Word’s can’t describe my feelings that the rope of death has been removed from around my client’s neck.”

Credits The Straits Times dated 22/09/2006