TAWAU: The body of an elderly man with machete marks on his head, believed to have been killed in a fight, was found in a plantation house on Jalan Sing Ho, Merotai Besar, Sunday.
Tawau District Police Chief, ACP Jasmin Hussin, said the body of the 66-year-old local man was found with slash wounds on the left and right sides of his head.
According to him, the police later managed to arrest the foreign suspect, 33, and seized a machete believed to have been the murder weapon.
“The suspect is a foreigner without valid identification documents working as a labourer in a plantation in Merotai Besar,” he said in a statement, Monday.
He said the police previously received a report at the Bombalai Police Station at 2.44pm from a male caller who said there had been a fight at a hut in Merotai Besar at 1.45pm.
Jasmin said that acting on information, a police team from the Criminal Investigation Division of the Tawau District Police Headquarters and the Bombalai Police Station headed to the scene.
“Upon arriving at the location, the police reported the discovery of the man’s body with stab wounds at the nearby hut. The victim’s body was taken to the Tawau Hospital for post-mortem,” he said.
Commenting further, he said initial investigations found that the motive of the incident was believed to be a misunderstanding between the victim and the suspect.
The case was being investigated under Section 302 of the Penal Code for murder and Section 6 (1) (c) of the Immigration Act 1959/63 for not having a valid identification document to be in Malaysia.
He said the suspect was detained under Section 51(5)(b) of the Immigration Act 1959/63 for further investigation.
