VictimSosilawati Lawiya
Cosmetics entrepreneur who travelled to Banting on 30 August 2010 regarding a land matter.
REAL CASE · COURT-CONCLUDED
Sosilawati Lawiya: four victims, four accused, different final outcomes
A source-led reconstruction of the 2010 Banting murders, the evidence used to prove the case without recovered bodies, the convictions of four accused, and the Federal Court outcome that upheld three convictions but acquitted R. Matan.
MalaysiaGombak, Banting, Shah Alam & Putrajaya, Malaysia30 Aug 2010–8 Oct 2024Concluded conviction appeals · sentence review decided
INTERACTIVE CASE RECONSTRUCTION
Sosilawati Lawiya: four victims, four accused, different final outcomes
Gombak, Banting, Shah Alam & Putrajaya, Malaysia · 30 Aug 2010–8 Oct 2024
Concluded conviction appeals · sentence review decided
REAL-CASE READINESSReady for editorial review
0 blockers0 warnings
30 Aug 2010Reported
Paused · clue 1 of 9
Sosilawati and three companions travel to Banting
Reporting states Sosilawati left her home in Gombak for Banting concerning a land matter, accompanied by Noorhisham Mohamad, Ahmad Kamil Abdul Karim and Kamaruddin Shamsuddin.
WHAT INVESTIGATORS KNEW AT THIS POINTInvestigators can only rely on the material revealed up to this point in the chronology.
1evidence item revealed4people / roles in view1source record attached2locations established
VictimNoorhisham Mohamad
Bank officer who accompanied Sosilawati Lawiya.
VictimAhmad Kamil Abdul Karim
Lawyer who accompanied Sosilawati Lawiya.
VictimKamaruddin Shamsuddin
Driver who accompanied Sosilawati Lawiya.
CASE SNAPSHOT
The case in one view.
This summary always shows the latest overall state of the case. It does not change when the chronology above moves.
The Federal Court rejected the sentence-review applications of Pathmanabhan and Thilaiyalagan. Kathavarayan withdrew his application, which was struck out, leaving his sentence in place.
APPEAL · 8 Oct 2024Death-sentence review decided
Locations and movements represented in the full case record.
GombakDeparture point
Ladang Gadong, BantingFarm / charged offence location
River near the farmPolice reconstruction
Shah Alam High CourtTrial court
Putrajaya courtsAppellate courts
ReportedGombak → Ladang Gadong, Banting
The main people and material needed to understand the case.
Legal noteArrest ≠ charge. Charge ≠ conviction. Person labels above use the latest source-supported status.
What remains unresolved?
- Which full-text trial and appellate judgments can be added to the source ledger as primary legal records?
- Which exhibits identified in the High Court judgment can be mapped individually without overstating what each exhibit proves?
- Which evidentiary distinctions led the Federal Court to acquit R. Matan while affirming the other three convictions?
How PulseKita handles a case.
- The case is reconstructed accused-by-accused so a conviction against one person is never treated as evidence of another person's guilt.
- The no-body aspect is explained through the court's combined-evidence reasoning rather than sensationalized.
- Police reconstruction is labelled as police reconstruction until later court findings establish legal conclusions.
- R. Matan's 2017 acquittal replaces his earlier convicted status in the live status view.
- The 2024 proceeding is treated as a sentence review for the three remaining convicted men, not a retrial of guilt.
WAS THIS CASE UNUSUAL?
Put the case beside the wider Malaysian numbers.
The case itself is established by its own evidence and court record. These datasets provide scale and context only; they do not explain motive, guilt or causation.
TIME-PERIOD WARNING
This case spans 30 Aug 2010–8 Oct 2024. Some comparison series below describe more recent Malaysia-wide conditions because a directly comparable historical series is not available. PulseKita does not treat modern figures as if they were the rate at the time of the case.
How has lethal violence changed?
PulseKita keeps the crime-index murder count separate from the SDG intentional-homicide rate because the definitions and units are not interchangeable.
Open-data murder seriescases
2016456
2017379
2018323
2019310
2020253
2021243
2022240
2023258
data.gov's crime_district series describes actual crimes where an offender was convicted. Keep it separate from newer investigation-paper counts.
Crime-index murder casescases
2022240
2023258
2024236
Crime-index murder is a PDRM crime-index series. Do not splice it into the SDG intentional-homicide rate series.
Intentional homicide, ICCScases
2024237
The 2024 ICCS intentional-homicide count is shown as a separate snapshot because the open SDG rate series currently ends in 2022. The 2024 crime-index murder count is 236, while ICCS intentional homicide is 237; the two statistical concepts must remain separate.
COMPARISON CAVEAT
Explore full homicide / murder data →Definitions changed across statistical products. PulseKita must label crime-index murder, ICCS homicide and SDG homicide rate separately.