Taufik escorted by police outside the High Court in Ipoh on Friday.
IPOH: A 49-year-old narcotics officer was sentenced to death after he was found guilty of being an accomplice in the fatal shooting of a goldsmith seven years ago.
Insp Mohd Taufik Peter Abdullah, who has been suspended from his duties at the state police narcotics department, and one Nagendran Sinnasamy, were robbing a shop at Max Goldsmith & Jewellery in Jalan Sultan Iskandar between 3.30pm and 5.10pm on Sept 16, 2009.
Shop owner Chen Fun Kee was killed during the robbery, shot by Nagendran with Taufik's pistol.
Taufik was earlier charged with the murder. The charge was amended to one under Section 3A of the Firearms Act (Increased Penalties) Act 1971 for being an accomplice in a fatal shooting when Taufik was called to make his defence.
High Court Justice Samsudin Hassan said Taufik failed to raise any reasonable doubt in the prosecution's case.
"It has also been found that the accused failed to take reasonable steps to prevent the shot from being fired.
"And the only punishment for this is the death sentence," the judge said.
Justice Samsudin noted that the prosecution managed to prove that the bullet casing found at the scene and slug in Chen's body were fired from the pistol belonging to Taufik. He said jewellery from the shop was found in Taufik's car which was parked at his Taman Meru Impian home.
He said there were disparities in the sworn evidence given by Taufik from the dock and in his initial written statement.
He said statements from Taufik's wife, mother and aunt were also riddled with discrepancies.
"As the witnesses are related to the accused, understandably they would have vested interests in siding with him.
"But then their statements were not only different from the accused's, they also failed to prove his defence of alibi," Samsudin said.
Datuk Naran Singh, Ashvinder Kaur and Muhammad Farhan Ahmad Fadzir defended Taufik while Harris Ong Mohd Jeffery Ong prosecuted.
