PUTRAJAYA: A former contractor's death penalty for murdering his three-year-old stepson has been commuted to 35 years in prison.

The Court of Appeal also ordered Khairul Izani Khairuddin, 36, also known as "Boy Tiger", to be given 12 strokes of the cane.

On Aug 26, 2022, the Klang High Court found Khairul Izani guilty of killing the child and sentenced him to death by hanging.

The offence was committed at a house at Jalan Bukit Indah 5, Taman Bukit Indah, Ampang, Selangor at 11am on Nov 8, 2018.

Ahmad Zaidi, when delivering the court's decision, said Khairul Izani failed to show that the High Court judge had erred in his findings when dismissing Khairul Izani's defence of mental insanity.

On the contrary, he said, there was evidence proving that Khairul Izani was sane during the incident as his wife had testified that her husband stopped beating the child after seeing bleeding from the victim's head and immediately took the victim to a clinic.

Ahmad Zaidi said the act of Khairul Izani lying to the doctor that the boy was injured when he fell in the bathroom was consistent with the behaviour of a sane person.

He said that based on the facts of the case, Khairul Izani's wife saw her husband beating the child repeatedly, stepping on him, strangling him and banging his head against the wall until the boy's head bled.

The woman did not succeed in stopping her husband from beating the child because she was heavily pregnant and also because Khairul Izani was a hot-tempered person, he said.