Malaysian man sentenced to death for killing two British students ‘to test his strength’
Defendant licked victims' blood after stabbing them to death for sport, prosecutor says
A Malaysian court convicted and sentenced today a local fishmonger to death by hanging for the murder of two British medical students last year on Borneo Island.
Zulkipli Abdullah, 24, was found guilty of stabbing to death Neil Dalton and Aidan Brunger in the city of Kuching, in Sarawak state, last August after an argument in a bar.
The two victims, both 22 years old, were students from Britain’s Newcastle University who were on a six-week work placement with a local hospital in the city.
The two were found dead, with stab wounds, on the morning of August 6 – just two days before their work placement at the hospital was due to end.
During the trial, Zulkipli had said he was involved in a fight with the Britons, but denied killing them, according to Malaysian media reports.
Prosecutor Muhamad Iskandar said Zulkipli made an unsworn statement from the dock during his defence, in which the fishmonger told the court he and two of his friends were involved in the fight.