ACT Court of Appeal reduces prison term for zoo worker’s killer
The Australian Capital Territory Court of Appeal has reduced the sentence of Jude Wijesinghe, who was convicted of murdering his colleague Tshewang Choden at the National Zoo and Aquarium in Canberra. The new prison term is 26 years and six months instead of 30 years.
Sentence changed after appeal
As reported by ABC News Australia, the minimum term Wijesinghe must serve before becoming eligible to apply for release was also reduced from 20 to 18 years. He will now be able to do so in 2041 rather than 2043.
The appeal was heard by judges Darryl Rangiah, Andrew Muller and John White. The panel has not yet published its reasons for the decision.
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Murder in a storage room
In 2023, Wijesinghe, who worked as a chef, admitted that he fatally stabbed Tshewang Choden 14 times after cornering her in a storage room at the Canberra zoo. ACT Supreme Court Chief Justice Lucy McCallum initially sentenced him to 30 years in prison, describing the attack as premeditated homicidal violence.
The judge took the convict’s mental illness into account as a factor that partly explained the crime and reduced his moral culpability. At the same time, she did not reduce the starting sentence because of the particularly serious objective circumstances of the crime. Wijesinghe appealed the sentence, arguing that the court had insufficiently considered his mental disorders when determining the punishment.
