The psychiatric assessment of a 14-year-old male student accused of fatally stabbing his 16-year-old female schoolmate in a school toilet remains incomplete, a Magistrate’s Court was informed today.
The case has been postponed to December 19 to allow time for the report from Hospital Bahagia Ulu Kinta to be completed, The Star reported.
During closed proceedings, the accused’s lawyer, Kitson Foong, told Magistrate Amira Sariaty Zainal that the psychiatric evaluation was still pending. The court subsequently granted an extension.
Foong explained that the assessment serves two purposes: to determine the teenager’s mental fitness to stand trial and to evaluate his state of mind at the time of the alleged offence.
The teen was charged on October 22 with the murder of his schoolmate at a school in Bandar Utama. According to the charge sheet, the alleged killing occurred in a female student toilet on October 14.
While Section 302 of the Penal Code carries a mandatory death sentence or life imprisonment with at least 12 strokes of the cane, the accused, being a minor, cannot face the death penalty. He may instead be sentenced under the Child Act 2001.
The court’s extension ensures that the upcoming proceedings will take the psychiatric evaluation into account, a critical factor in determining how the case will proceed.
