Background of victim

Born on 18 July 1974 as the second and youngest daughter of Ong Bee Jeng (Chinese: 王美钟; pinyin: Wáng Meǐzhōng) and Pearly Visvanathan in Ipoh, Perak, Canny Ong Lay Kian (Chinese: 王丽涓; pinyin: Wáng Lìjuān) was a Malaysian working as an information technology analyst in San Diego, California, United States. Her mother is of Chinese and Indian descent. Ong has two sisters named Elsie Ong Lee Cheng (Chinese: 王丽娴; pinyin: Wáng Lìxián) and Ong Lee Shian. Ong was said to be a dutiful daughter and considerate.

Ong went to the U.S. to study in university, and studied economics in Hawaii. She met her future husband Brandon Ong (Chinese: 王奕天; pinyin: Wáng Yìtiān) in Los Angeles when she went there to seek employment, and they married in 2001.^[2] Brandon Ong was born to ethnic Chinese parents who immigrated from Singapore to U.S. more than 20 years prior to his wife's murder.^[3] Together, the couple settled in San Diego.

Later on, in early 2003, Ong's father, Ong Bee Jeng was suffering from cancer and on 1 June 2003, together with her husband, Ong flew from the United States to Malaysia to visit her ailing father. Luckily, her father's condition improved and was recovering, and so Ong was set to return to the US on 14 June 2003.

Kidnapping, rape and murder

On 13 June 2003, the day before Canny Ong was due to return to USA by flight, she went out for a farewell dinner of steak and fried crabs with her family and close friends at Monde Restaurant, Bangsar Shopping Complex (BSC), Bangsar, Kuala Lumpur.

After the meal, seeing that her mother had become tired, Ong offered to drive her mother back home before she continue with the farewell party, Ong returned to their car in the basement to pick up a parking ticket while her mother and sister waited at the Autopay machine. However, Ong never returned, for she was being abducted by Ahmad Najib bin Aris, who was then 27 years old.

After waiting for 20 minutes, Ong's mother and sister became worried. Ong's sister made two calls to her handphone – the first was not answered while the second was converted to voicemail. Together, they both went to the car park and found their car - a purple Proton Tiara (WFN 6871 plate) - missing. After pleading with the security guards, the mother, the elder sister, Ong's friends, together with the security personnel, viewed the CCTV footages and saw Ong being abducted by an unidentified person (Ahmad Najib).^[4] More than an hour after the woman's abduction, a police report was made.^[2]

On 14 June 2003, at 12.00 am, two plainsclothes policemen patrolling on a motorcycle found a Proton Tiara (Canny Ong's car) and upon approaching it, they saw Ahmad Najib and Canny Ong inside it near Kelana Jaya. Canny Ong was still alive at the time. One of the officers, Lance Corporal Subramaniam Ravichandran, showed his police ID and asked to see the duo's identification cards, which Ahmad Najib and his captive Ong had given upon the officer's request. Ravichandran asked the two to get out, but Ahmad Najib refused to, and even stopped Ong from getting out of the car. According to Ravichandran, the High Court heard in the trial of Ahmad Najib that Ong had made a series of strange hand gestures towards the officer (before Ahmad Najib noticed her), apparently trying to seek help from the officer, but he could not understand the gestures. Ahmad Najib then quickly drove off after he maintained his refusal to alight the car, and the policemen, who still held on to the IDs of Ong and her kidnapper, quickly fired shots at the car and attempted to give chase, but they lost sight of the car. The IDs later became the major clue to identifying the last person with Ong when police obtained the IDs and investigated the murder and rape case.

Another witness, Aminah Isahak, later spotted the Proton Tiara, with Ong (still alive) inside. At that point of time, Ahmad Najib stopped the car along Jalan Sungai Way to replace a car tyre, which was punctured by a bullet (shot by the police officers earlier). Aminah, who was twenty feet away from the car when she waited in her brother-in-law's car. She was approached by Ahmad Najib to borrow a jack to remove the tyre. Aminah said that while Ahmad Najib was struggling with the wheel, she saw Ong pulling odd faces a her, trying to signal for help. Feeling that something is amiss, Aminah copied down the car registration number, which she did just in time when Ahmad Najib drove off again, having given up replacing the car tyre. Together with her brother-in-law, Aminah went to report the incident at Subang Jaya Police Station, and provided the police with the car registration number.^[2]

Later, between 1.00 am to 5.00 am, Ahmad Najib raped Canny Ong in the Proton Tiara under a bridge (that was still under construction) near Taman Datuk Harun in Jalan Klang Lama. After that, Ahmad Najib used a knife to stab Canny Ong twice, which killed the 28-year-old IT analyst. Canny Ong's body was pushed into a narrow hole on the side of the highway and overlaid with two large tires containing cement. The car was abandoned at a nearby shop house. The killer then fled in a taxi. After that, the next day, Ahmad Najib bought petrol with a plan to burn the body. He went back to the hole and poured oil and burned the corpse.^[2]

Unknown to Ahmad Najib, a van driver, Azizan Ismail, had witnessed him at the construction site in the car with a topless woman (Ong) lying on the back seat, but mistook them as a pair of lovers having sex. He would see the Proton Tiara once again the second time when Ahmad Najib was, unbeknownst to the witness, at a short distance away raping and killing his kidnapped victim. Azizan had also stole Canny Ong's handphone from the car, and sold it; the police initially arrested him and his two friends as a suspect after they traced the handphone to the three of them during investigations, but later released them after Ahmad Najib's arrest. Azizan would become one of the 69 witnesses who came to testify in the murder trial of 27-year-old Ahmad Najib bin Aris.

Discovery of the body and Ahmad Najib's arrest

On the Tuesday morning of 17 June 2003, Canny Ong's remains were discovered by a construction site manager. She was found with a cloth around her neck, her hands crossed over her chest and her legs dangling out of the hole. The police, having received reports of Canny Ong's disappearance, arrived at the scene and brought the body for forensic tests. Canny Ong's family was contacted to identify her body. The abandoned Proton Tiara was also discovered by police.

An autopsy revealed that Ong was strangled before her body was set alight. Semen was found on Ong's vagina. Subsequently, following the police investigation of the case, on 20 June 2003, Ahmad Najib was arrested as a suspect, and the DNA tests confirmed that the semen matched Ahmad Najib's. The man also confessed to the police that he had indeed killed Ong, and made a full-length confession of the crime, and even led the police to the various crime scenes related to the rape and murder. Ahmad Najib had also said in his confession that he went to the shopping centre to want to look for a woman he had a grudge with, and the woman was his former employer, but had mistook Ong for the woman, and only realised the mistake when Ravichandran checked the ID.

Ahmad Najib was then formally charged with murder and rape,^[5] and media reports of the case brought shock to the whole of Malaysia. Further police investigations also found that Ahmad Najib was linked to and allegedly committed four carpark rape cases, which led to speculations that Ahmad Najib could be a serial rapist.^[6] However, the police officers could not formally charge or investigate Ahmad Najib with these cases as the victims, some of them were married, did not want to let people know about their identities as Ahmad Najib's previous rape victims.

Canny Ong's funeral was held at St Francis Xavier Church on 27 June 2003. Over 500 people from the public attended the funeral to offer their condolences, including some politicians. Ong's family and friends were also present at the funeral.^[7]

High Court murder trial and sentence

The trial started on 15 September 2003, merely 3 months after Canny Ong's murder. DPP Salehuddin bin Saidin was the prosecutor in charge of the case, and the defence lawyer representing Ahmad Najib was Mohamed Haniff bin Khatri Abdulla, a notable lawyer in Malaysia. If found guilty of murder, under Section 302 of the Malaysian Penal Code, Ahmad Najib faces the mandatory death penalty.

Despite confessing to the crime, Ahmad Najib pleaded not guilty, claiming that he was forced, tortured and coerced by the police to make the confession. Mohamed Haniff also sought to challenge the validity of the confession. In rebuttal, the magistrate who was present when Ahmad Najib was first charged testified that Ahmad Najib seemed relaxed and had no physical injuries on him, and had voluntarily made the confession, which he accepted at the preliminary hearing (at that time, Ahmad Najib was unrepresented).^[2]

After a trial within a trial lasting 10 days, the trial judge, High Court Justice Datuk Muhamad Ideres Muhamad Rapee admitted the confession as evidence. Other than the confession, the forensic evidence and chemist report also linked Ahmad Najib to the crime, especially the clothes he wore at the time of the abduction had some traces of Ong's DNA. the fabric cloth which Ahmad Najib used to strangle Ong, was the same type which airplane cleaners would use to wipe the plane windows, and given the killer's occupation, it further linked Ahmad Najib to the crime.^[2] Criminalologist and psychiatrist, Dr. Geshina Ayu Mat Saat confirmed that Ahmad Najib is not psychotic and can function as usual. He also has good relationships with his family, colleagues and neighbors.

In the defence, Mohamed Haniff sought to prove that Ahmad Najib could not be the killer, and questioned some parts of the prosecution's case. He pointed out that why did Ong not take a chance to escape the car when Ahmad Najib was busy trying to replace the tyre, and given that she had a black belt in martial arts, it would not be impossible for her to escape Ahmad Najib's clutches, which led to some people to suspect why. For this theory, some of the experts who were interviewed about the case rebutted the lawyer's claims, talking that it was easier said than done, and no blame should be placed on the victim for her failure to escape. It was, from their opinion, not possible for Ong to be able to escape since she had no idea of where she was and it was 2 am. Another one of the experts, in response to the lawyer's theory, said that imagination and reality is different when it comes to such a situation Ong was in, had it been another person facing such a similar situation.^[8][9] He even brought up a theory that other people could be responsible for the murder and rape by bringing up the finances of Ong's family, and the disappearance of the ring Ong wore at the time of her disappearance. The cement-filled tyres were heavy, the lawyer asked, would it need strength to move them, to which the police officer conceded but refused to agree with the lawyer on the stand that more than one person could be involved.

Furthermore, Mohamed Haniff sought to undermine the victim's dignity, saying that Ong could have consented to having sex with Ahmad Najib, and the move of which Ahmad Najib tied the cloth around Ong's neck was part of a sexual act performed by couples during masturbation (more commonly by males), and asked if the death could be of an accidental and consensual "sexual asphyxia". When he put this theory to the forensic pathologist Dr Kasinathan Nadesan, he said he could not completely elude this possibility but he said such a sexual act usually do not occur in a car, not on the road side or wayside, but in places away from the public eye. Dr Kasinathan had earlier testified that death was caused by strangulation and even said that he could not dismiss that the cause of Ong's death was possibly due to the massive bleeding caused by a sharp weapon. The pathologist earlier also testified that the only area not charred by fire was the skin under the ligature tied around Ong's neck, which demonstrated how brutally tight the cloth was tied around the neck. The prosecution, in rebuttal, argued that the defence had not raise a reasonable doubt over the case against Ahmad Najib, and had been relying on bare denials, which should not be a defence. They called the defence's attempts to show that someone else had committed the crime by impersonating Ahmad Najib as "did not make any sense".

In August 2004, when the High Court determined that the prosecution had made out a prima facie case against him, Ahmad Najib was called to give his defence. After discussing with his six defence lawyers, he chose to remain silent, much to the shock of the public and the court. Under the law, if a person chooses to remain silent, the judge would have to convict the defendant but do nothing else. However, the lawyer Mohamed Haniff argued that the court should have an option of convicting his client or re-evaluate the evidence and submissions from the prosecution before deciding the verdict.^[10] He also said that Ahmad Najib's decision to remain silent was not a move to indicate to the judge that the judge's decision to convict him is correct, and he reiterated that if so, then the right to remain silent is not a legal option under the law. In return, DPP Salehuddin argued that the defence had not rebutted the prosecution's case and did not call any other witnesses to testify on their behalf. It was decreed that in the law, DPP Salehuddin said, if the prosecution's case was left unrebutted, and the accused chose to remain silent, the accused is ought to be found guilty of the charges he was tried for in court.

On 23 February 2005, after a trial lasting 52 days, the Shah Alam High Court found Ahmad Najib guilty of murder and rape. The judge said that the evidence against Ahmad Najib was overpowering and the prosecution had proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Ahmad Najib had indeed murdered and raped Canny Ong. Consequently, for murdering Canny Ong, Ahmad Najib was sentenced to death. Additionally, for raping Canny Ong, the High Court judge Muhammad Ideres sentenced Ahmad Najib to 20 years' imprisonment, the maximum sentence under Malaysian law for rape, along with 10 strokes of the cane.^[11]

Ahmad Najib told reporters that he accepted the court's decision, but he indicated that he will appeal against the conviction and sentence.^[1] The outcome of the trial had also brought some closure to Ong's bereaved loved ones and acquaintances, who were affected by the many unsolicited and baseless conspiracy theories in relation to Ong's death, as prompted by the randomness of the crime.