KOTA KINABALU, MALAYSIA - Police have nabbed three key suspects in the murder of a 22-year-old Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) student whom they suspect could have been raped.

Sabah Police Commissioner Datuk Noor Rashid Ibrahim said they arrested the trio, including a pirate taxi driver, to assist in investigations into the death of Sherliana Gediun (pic).

Sherliana, a final-year student at UMS, had left her home in northern Kota Marudu district on Aug 22 boarding a pirated taxi.

She never reached the UMS campus and her family came to know of her "disappearance" only on Aug 24. Police recovered a badly decomposed body, believed to be that of Sherliana, in Tuaran on Aug 28.

Noor Rashid said that the suspects, all locals, were arrested at separate locations in Tuaran and Kota Marudu by a police special task force set up to investigate the case.

He said police were waiting for the medical report to determine if she was raped as well as DNA identification of the body.

The case came just months after another UMS student was kidnapped and raped outside the campus. But she was rescued by police in interior Tambunan.

Two local men were given lengthy sentences for the crime.