Between 21 and 22 May 2017, 20-year-old Zulfarhan Osman Zulkarnain (29 November 1996 – 1 June 2017), a military cadet officer of National Defence University of Malaysia, was relentlessly tortured and scalded with a steam iron at the university's hostel by his fellow students over a stolen laptop, and died from multiple injuries at Serdang Hospital on 1 June 2017. A total of 18 students, all male, were arrested and out of these 18 suspects, six of them were charged with murder and assault while the remaining 12 were charged with assaulting and hurting Zulfarhan. A 19th suspect was originally charged with causing hurt to the victim but was acquitted without having his defence being called.
After a long-drawn trial process from 29 January 2018 to 2 November 2021, the Kuala Lumpur High Court found the six main perpetrators guilty of manslaughter instead of murder, and sentenced them to 18 years' imprisonment each, while the remaining 12 were sentenced to three years in jail each for causing hurt to Zulfarhan. However, upon the prosecution's appeal on 23 July 2024, the Court of Appeal found the six main offenders guilty of murder and sentenced them to death, after finding that the murder itself was among the "rarest of the rare" cases and the six had exhibited a blatant disregard for human life, and hence the death penalty was the only appropriate sentence for the six. The respective three-year jail terms of the 12 other accomplices were raised to four years for each of them.
The six condemned who were guilty of murder filed appeals to the Federal Court of Malaysia, and on 28 February 2025, the Federal Court overturned the death sentence and instead restored the six men's manslaughter conviction and 18-year prison terms.
Murder investigation On 1 June 2017, after he was hospitalized for burn wounds and swelling, 20-year-old Zulfarhan Osman Zulkarnain, the eldest of four children (two sons and two daughters) in his family, died at Serdang Hospital. At the time of his death, Zulfarhan was a third-year student and navy cadet officer of National Defence University of Malaysia in Sungai Besi, Kuala Lumpur.
When the nature of Zulfarhan's injuries were relayed to the authorities, the police classified his death as murder, and brought in a total of 36 students from both Zulfarhan's school and Universiti Tenaga Nasional (UNITEN) for questioning. Defence Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein, who got wind of the death of Zulfarhan, called for the Malaysian Armed Forces and the university to conduct an investigation into the death of Zulfarhan. After the completion of an autopsy, Zulfarhan was laid to rest at Kebun Teh Muslim cemetery in Johor Bahru, which was Zulfarhan's hometown. Sources revealed that prior to the birth of Zulfarhan, his mother Hawa Osman had two miscarriages, and she did not approve of her eldest son's choice to go to UPNM after completing his diploma at Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia (Zulfarhan had failed to enter the Royal Military College during secondary school before this); her disapproval was due to her late brother's experience of having difficulty getting leave throughout his military career, but she relented eventually.
First-stage investigations revealed that Zulfarhan was a victim of bullying in his school, and he had been tortured for a period of two days straight from 21 May to 22 May 2017 by a group of students at the university's dormitory quarters. It was alleged that a laptop of one of Zulfarhan's abusers went missing and hence they interrogated Zulfarhan and also caused harm to him by scalding him with a steam iron, trying to force him to admit to the whereabouts of the missing laptop. Although it was speculated that 20 to 30 students were involved in the brutal assault that ended with Zulfarhan's murder, 19 of them, aged between 20 and 21, were confirmed to have been allegedly responsible for the abuse-turned-murder of Zulfarhan.
On 14 June 2017, six of the 19 arrested students were charged with murder. Five of them – Muhammad Akmal Zuhairi Azmal, Muhammad Azamuddin Mad Sofi, Muhammad Najib Mohd Razi, Muhammad Afif Najmudin Azahat and Mohamad Shobirin Sabri – were charged with directly murdering Zulfarhan under Section 302 of the Malaysian Penal Code, which warranted the mandatory death penalty if found guilty, while the sixth, Abdoul Hakeem Mohd Ali, was charged with abetment of murder under Section 109 of the same law (read together with Section 302), which prescribed the same penalty as murder under this section if convicted as charged. Another 13 students, whose identities were not revealed, were charged with voluntarily causing hurt to Zulfarhan under Section 330 of the Penal Code (which carried the maximum jail term of seven years and a fine), for the purpose of forcing a confession out of the victim. All the 19 suspects pleaded not guilty to the charges. Bail was not granted to the six accused of murder due to it being a capital offence.
On 15 September 2017, the six students who were charged with the murder of Zulfarhan were ordered to stand trial at the Kuala Lumpur High Court, where their cases were transferred to. On 27 October 2017, the prosecution appealed that the case of all the remaining 13 suspects should be transferred to the High Court and heard in the same trial together with the six charged for the murder of Zulfarhan. This request was granted by the High Court on 13 November 2017, and one month later, on 8 December 2017, the trial for all the 19 alleged offenders was scheduled to begin on 29 January 2018 and carried out for an estimated 14-day period.
Participants Murder (Section 302 of the Penal Code)
Muhammad Akmal Zuhairi Azmal, 21 years old Muhammad Azamuddin Mad Sofi (also spelt Muhammad Azamuddin Mod Sofi), 21 years old Muhammad Najib Mohd Razi, 21 years old Muhammad Afif Najmudin Azahat, 21 years old Mohamad Shobirin Sabri, 21 years old
Abetment of murder (Section 109, read with Section 302 of the Penal Code) Abdoul Hakeem Mohd Ali, 21 years old
Voluntarily causing hurt to extort confession or to compel restoration of property (Section 330, read with Section 34 of the Penal Code)
Mohd Hafiz Fauzan Ismail, 21 years old Mohamad Lukhmanul Hakim Mohd Zain, 21 years old Ahmad Shafwan Berdal, 21 years old Muhammad Amirul Asraff Mala, 21 years old Luqman Hakim Shamsuri Agus, 21 years old Muhammad Sufi Mohd Mustapha, 21 years old Noriznan Izzairi Noor Azhar, 21 years old Muhamad Ashraf Abdullah, 21 years old Muhammad Danial Firdaus Azmir, 21 years old Muhammad Hasif Ismail, 21 years old Muhammad Adib Iman Fuad Ady Sani, 21 years old Mohamad Syazwan Musa, 21 years old Muhammad Akmal Akif Alias, 21 years old
Murder trial
Prosecution's case On 29 January 2018, the 19 students stood trial at the Kuala Lumpur High Court for the torture and murder of Zulfarhan. The trial was presided over by Justice Datuk Azman Abdullah, while the prosecution was led by Othman Abdullah and Julia Ibrahim.
The prosecution's case was that prior to the fatal torture of Zulfarhan, the laptop belonging to Muhammad Akmal Zuhairi Azmal, one of the six men accused of murder, had gone missing and he suspected that Zulfarhan had stolen it. Although Zulfarhan denied that he stole it, which was the truth, Muhammad Akmal did not believe him and persisted in his suspicion. Evidence was adduced during the trial that Muhammad Akmal had sought help from a bomoh, who was the father of one of the 12 accused persons charged with injuring Zulfarhan, and the bomoh deduced from his prayers and visions that the culprit who stole the laptop was Zulfarhan, which turned out to be inaccurate as he was truly innocent. These allegations fueled the bullying against Zulfarhan, and eventually culminated into the series of physical torture that ended Zulfarhan's life.
On 21 May 2017, together with 12 of the 13 defendants charged with causing hurt, five of the main accused – Muhammad Akmal Zuhairi Azmal, Muhammad Azamuddin Mad Sofi, Muhammad Najib Mohd Razi, Muhammad Afif Najmudin Azahat and Abdoul Hakeem Mohd Ali – held Zulfarhan in confinement at the dormitory quarters of the university. They relentlessly assaulted him, wanting to force Zulfarhan to confess that he had stolen the laptop, but Zulfarhan once again denied stealing the laptop. On 22 May 2017, the next day, five of the main accused – Muhammad Akmal Zuhairi Azmal, Muhammad Azamuddin Mad Sofi, Muhammad Najib Mohd Razi, Muhammad Afif Najmudin Azahat and Abdoul Hakeem Mohd Ali – and a sixth person Mohamad Shobirin Sabri once again restrained Zulfarhan at the dormitory quarters of the university. This time round, things took the turn for the worse as the six men took out a steam iron to scald Zulfarhan on his body multiple times, including his private parts, and Zulfarhan, in a state of extreme pain, continued to deny stealing the laptop. This persisted for several hours before the six defendants finally stopped, leaving Zulfarhan with multiple burn wounds. Throughout the next few days, Zulfarhan did not report for class or training due to him being in a poor condition as a result of the burns.
Dr Azfar Hussin, a clinic doctor, testified in court that on 27 May 2017, five days after the scalding incidents, Zulfarhan was accompanied by four friends to consult him, and his friends told Dr Azfar that Zulfarhan injured himself from an explosion during army training at an army camp. Without suspecting anything amiss, Dr Azfar became alarmed by the severity of the burn wounds after examining and stated that Zulfarhan needed medical treatment at a hospital, and Zulfarhan turned it down, stating that he would manage with dressing. Dr Azfar still chose to write a referral letter to a hospital, and continued to advise Zulfarhan's friends to bring him to the hospital. The doctor identified four of the murder accused – Muhammad Akmal, Muhammad Azamuddin, Muhammad Afif and Abdoul Hakeem – as the friends who brought Zulfarhan to the clinic. However, despite the doctor's advice, the four did not comply and never took Zulfarhan to hospital. Four days later, on 31 May 2017, Zulfarhan came to the clinic a second time, and he appeared weaker, fatigued and dehydrated. Dr Azfar questioned Zulfarhan why did he not go straight to hospital, and he replied that his condition was better and Zulfarhan wanted him to clean and apply bandages on the wounds on his thigh and backside, before he could go to hospital later. Dr Azfar, who still told Zulfarhan to go to hospital immediately, noted that Zulfarhan was accompanied by two friends, whom he identified as Muhammad Akmal and Muhammad Azamuddin, during his second consultation. A day after this, Zulfarhan died in Serdang Hospital shortly after one of the accused persons called the ambulance upon discovering that he became stiff and unresponsive.