Ahmad Najib was later married with two children (aged between two and one at the time of his sentencing), and was employed as an airplane cabin cleaner in Malaysia Airlines since 2000.
[1] 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.
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.
[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.
Canny Ong's body was pushed into a narrow hole on the side of the highway and overlaid with two large tires containing cement.
[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.
The police, having received reports of Canny Ong's disappearance, arrived at the scene and brought the body for forensic tests.
Ahmad Najib was then formally charged with murder and rape,[5] and media reports of the case brought shock to the whole of Malaysia.
If found guilty of murder, under Section 302 of the Malaysian Penal Code, Ahmad Najib faces the mandatory death penalty.
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.
[2] Criminalologist and psychiatrist, Dr. Geshina Ayu Mat Saat confirmed that Ahmad Najib is not psychotic and can function as usual.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
On 23 February 2005, after a trial lasting 52 days, the Shah Alam High Court found Ahmad Najib guilty of murder and rape.
After the High Court sentenced him to death, Ahmad Najib filed an appeal against his conviction and sentence, but on 5 March 2007, the Court of Appeal of Malaysia, composed of judges Abdul Aziz Mohamed, Mohd Ghazali Mohd Yusoff, and Azmel Ma'amor, dismissed the appeal, affirming the conviction and sentence based on the forensic evidence against Ahmad Najib, though they rejected the admissibility of the confession due to possibility of police pressuring Ahmad Najib to confess.
[14] Ahmad Najib later appealed for mercy from the Sultan of Selangor to commute his death sentence to life imprisonment, but the plea of pardon was rejected.
On 23 September 2016, more than 13 years after the murder of Canny Ong, 40-year-old Ahmad Najib bin Aris was executed by hanging in Kajang Prison.