The Shah Alam High Court today sentenced aircraft cabin cleaning supervisor Ahmad Najib Aris to death for the murder of US-based IT analyst Canny Ong Lay Kian in 2003.

The brutal murder had shocked the nation and made the headlines in all major newspapers in the country then.

Justice Muhamad Ideres Muhamad Rapee also sentenced Ahmad Najib to the maximum 20 years' jail and ordered to be given 10 strokes of the rotan for raping Ong.

According to Bernama , Muhamad Ideres ordered the jail term to commence from June 20, 2003, the day Ahmad Najib was arrested.

The news agency said that Ahmad Najib appeared calm when the sentence was read.

"What's decided by the judge will be the outcome. I consider everything as a test for me...a test is meant as a challenge. A test to me is to gauge one's patience. I don't have any fear (of death), I feel perfectly normal. If there is an occasion for us to meet, we'll meet again. This is what I have expected," he was reported to have said earlier.

Abducted from car park

The trial lasted 46 days beginning on Sept 15, 2003 and ending May 20 last year when the prosecution closed its case.

The prosecution called 44 witnesses, including Ong's parents, and at the end of the prosecution's case, the judge ordered Ahmad Najib to make his defence. However, Ahmad Najib stunned everyone when he chose to remain silent.

Among the evidence adduced was that on the state of Ong's charred remains which were found buried under two cement-filled tyres in a manhole measuring 1x1x1 metre four days after she was abducted from a basement car park in Bangsar Shopping Complex (BSC).

She was abducted on June 13, 2003 after a farewell dinner with her family and friends. She was supposed to have returned to the US the next day.

On June 20, Ahmad Najib, 29, was picked-up by police personnel from his house in Pantai Dalam.

In a confession to a magistrate the next day, the accused said Ong's last words to him were 'leave me alone, I am going to heaven'. She said this when Ahmad Najib told her that he was going to burn her body.