A Malaysian court on Wednesday overturned the homicide conviction of a policeman who sprayed machine-gun fire at a fleeing teen motorist, killing the boy and stoking anger over frequent police brutality.
Police officer Jenain Subi was convicted last year of causing the death of 15-year-old Aminul Rasyid Amzah in April 2010 by firing on a car driven by the youth in a suburb of the capital Kuala Lumpur.
Jenain had been sentenced to five years in prison.
He admitted firing 21 times with his sub-machinegun at Aminul Rasyid’s car in a bid to stop it after it had run through a police roadblock, the independent news portal The Malaysian Insider reported.
But he has denied trying to kill the teen, who had sped through several traffic lights while taking the car on a joyride, leading police to believe he was a criminal on the run.
The judge overturned a lower court’s verdict after finding that “the intention of the shooter was to demobilise the car, not in any way to kill the boy”, said Salim Bashir, Jenain’s lawyer.