A man sentenced to 30 years in jail for murdering his co-worker at a Canberra zoo has had his punishment reduced on appeal.
Jude Luckshan Wijesinghe, 32, fatally stabbed Tshewang Choden 14 times in a kitchen storeroom at Jamala Wildlife Lodge, located inside Canberra's National Zoo and Aquarium, in 2023.
In December 2025, Wijesinghe was handed a 30-year sentence with a 20-year non-parole period after pleading guilty to murder.
At the time, Chief Justice Lucy McCallum described violence against women as a "scourge" that "warrants the sternest punishment".
Wijesinghe appealed the sentence to the ACT Court of Appeal before Justices Jon White, Andrew Muller, and Darryl Rangiah.
On Wednesday, September 2, the three judges upheld parts of the appeal and reduced his sentence to 26 years and six months in jail, ending in June 2050.
The court also reduced his non-parole period to 18 years, meaning he will be eligible for release in December 2041.
During the appeal hearing in July 2026, Wijesinghe's barrister Kylie Weston-Scheuber said the original sentence was "manifestly excessive" and argued the Chief Justice failed to properly account for Wijesinghe's mental health.
Among her reasons, the barrister submitted the judge erred by failing to reduce the head sentence, despite accepting evidence that the 32-year-old's mental impairment reduced his moral culpability.
She argued the reduction should not have been restricted solely to the non-parole period.
Describing the judge's sentencing approach as "overly technical" and "reflective of error," Ms Weston-Scheuber further argued Wijesinghe was entitled to a discount to his head sentence for his guilty plea.
Opposing the appeal, Elizabeth Ruddle KC argued the original sentence sat within an appropriate range.
She cautioned against conflating an offender's personal circumstances with the severity of the crime, maintaining the case had to be assessed on its unique facts.
"Let's not forget how horrific this murder was," she told the court.
"She was trapped in that room knowing she was going to die."
She also argued that while applying a guilty plea discount purely within the non-parole period was an "unorthodox approach," it remained a valid exercise of judicial discretion rather than an error.
In the decision published on Wednesday, the three-judge bench found that the Chief Justice had erred by failing to take the man's guilty plea and mental impairment into account when setting the head sentence, rather than restricting those reductions solely to the non-parole period.
"The point here is that her Honour, having determined that the mental condition of the appellant justified a reduction in sentence, was obliged to take that into account as part of the instinctive synthesis of the head sentence," the judges said.
"It could not be left simply for the non-parole period."
However, the judges rejected the defence barrister's argument that Wijesinghe's mental illness also reduced the objective seriousness of the murder, instead agreeing with the Chief Justice that the crime remained an offence of the "utmost gravity".
Because the judges allowed the appeal on specific legal errors, they noted it was unnecessary to formally rule on whether the original sentence was manifestly excessive, though they maintained a 30-year starting point when calculating his new sentence.
When resentencing Wijesinghe, the bench agreed with Chief Justice McCallum that he had shown limited remorse and a "troubling lack of insight" into his offending, which they found was relevant to his risk of reoffending.
"Although [Wijesinghe's] major depressive disorder is in remission, his obsessive infatuation with the woman he murdered continues," the judges said.
