Johannesburg - Senthill Arumugam was sentenced in Brisbane, Australia, on Friday for the murder that occurred in March 2014. He had pleaded guilty to the murder.
The court had heard how Arumugam had travelled to Brisbane from South Africa with the intention of killing Singaporean student Meena Narayanan, if she didn’t decide to go ahead with their marriage.
The pair had met online in 2013 and their families agreed that they should marry.
Arumugam stabbed Narayanan 32 times in a hotel room and slit her throat in what investigators called a “frenzied attack.” Narayanan had bruises and cuts on her back, arms, hands and legs which suggested to investigators that she had tried to defend herself.
She died from wounds to her chest and abdomen.
Narayanan, the court heard, had initially agreed to marry Arumugam after meeting on an arranged marriage website. But later she had expressed doubts about the marriage before Arumugam arrived in Australia.
Arumugam at first threatened to kill himself before telling a friend that if “he couldn’t have her, nobody would”.
It also emerged in court that the engineer had attempted to buy a firearm, but after learning that he would be unable to bring it into Australia, he would buy a knife on arrival.
He had come to believe that she was cheating on him. Arumugam also stabbed himself in the abdomen during the murder, but medical evidence was able to prove that he had deliberately chosen part of his body that he knew would not be life-threatening.
They both were found bloodied after the attack and Arumugam claimed that she had asked him to help her die.
Justice David Boddice described Arumugam’s planning as meticulous and calculating.
“Your motivation was anger and jealousy and her continuation of a relationship with someone other than yourself,” the Daily Mail reported Boddice saying.
Arumugam will be eligible for parole in 2035.