Six years after he was arrested for murdering his Indonesian girlfriend, a Bangladeshi construction worker escaped the hangman's noose on Tuesday.

Kamrul Hasan Abdul Quddus, 40, became the fourth convicted murderer on death row to be given a life sentence instead of the death penalty.

This follows changes to the law, which kicked in this year, giving judges the discretion to impose either the death penalty or a life sentence for certain categories of murder.

Kamrul was convicted in 2010 of murdering Yulia Afriyanti, 25, who worked here as a maid. Her naked body was found in December 2007 in a cardboard box in a unit of the Viz@Holland condominium which was then under construction.

At Kamrul's re-sentencing on Tuesday, the prosecution did not object to him being jailed for life, but sought a caning sentence of 16 to 18 strokes. He was sentenced to 10 strokes of the cane.