DEATH PENALTY COMMUTED

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 26985, 10 March 1953, Page 9

DEATH PENALTY COMMUTED

SENTENCE ON WOMAN TERRORIST

(Rec. 11 p.m.) ‘ SINGAPORE, March 9. The Sultan of Perak today commuted the death sentence on Lee Meng, a 25-year-old Chinese woman prisoner, for whom the Hungarian Government last month offered to exchange Edgar Sanders, a British businessman who is now serving an 11-year prison sentence in Budapest for alleged spying. The Sultan, who acted on the advice of the Perak Executive Council, substituted a sentence of penal servitude for life. Lee Meng, alias Lee Ten Tai, was sentenced to death last year for the illegal possession of a hand grenade in violation of the emergency regulations. Several clemency petitions were sent to the Sultan on her behalf, including one which was rushed from London a fortnight ago by Comet airliner from more than 50 British members of Parliament.

Another petition was sent by the powerful Malayan Chinese Association...

Lee Meng was arrested in July last year, and was first tried in August. The Judge disagreed with the two assessors, who found her not guilty, and ordered a new trial. The x Judge and one assessor agreed on her guilt at the second trial in September, and she was sentenced to death oh the majority decision. The Court of Appeal in Kuala Lumpur rejected an appeal in November, and in February an application for permission to take the case to the Privy Council was rejected by the council’s Judicial Committee.

In their petition, the British members of Parliament claimed that Lee Meng’s second trial was* a departure from practice in the trial of an Asian. They said usually three Asians were called to enable the Court to choosd two assessors, but on this occasion two Europeans and only one Asian had been called, thereby depriving the Court of discretion to select Asians as assessors.