British woman arrested for murder after her expat husband is stabbed to death with kitchen knife in Malaysia

A British woman has been arrested on suspicion of murder after her husband was stabbed to death on the Malaysian holiday island of Langkawi, police said Thursday.

John William Jones, 62, was found on the floor of his house with a stab wound to the chest, local police chief Mohamad Iqbal Ibrahim said.

His British wife, whose identity was not disclosed, has been detained and is suspected of having murdered him following a row, he said.

The pair had lived on Langkawi, a jungle-clad, tropical island in northwest Malaysia that attracts millions of tourists annually to its palm-fringed beaches, for the past 11 years, Mohamad Iqbal said.

"The couple were believed to have engaged in an argument. The wife then took a knife from the kitchen and stabbed her husband in the chest," he said.

A 30-centimetre (12-inch) knife was found on the floor of the couple's bedroom covered in blood stains, he said.

Local media reported the victim's body was discovered early Thursday after neighbours alerted police.

In recent years, the wife would have been sentenced to death by hanging if found guilty of murdering her husband, with murder carrying a mandatory death sentence in Malaysia.

But the government recently pledged to abolish the death penalty for all crimes, which lawmakers are set to approve this week.