In Malaysia, the charge of rape carries with it a minimum possible sentence of ten years with strokes of the cane. The sentence can be extended to the maximum of 30 years.
Yesterday, January 27, 2021, Sessions Court Judge Datin M. Kunasundary handed down a sentence of 10 years per charge with two strokes of the cane in court proceedings that lasted five hours once all of the charges against the unnamed accused were read.
His total sentence amounts to 1,050 years and 24 strokes of the cane, the maximum number of strokes allowable. His sentence will be served consecutively beginning on January 20 when he was arrested.
“I hope you will repent while in prison. You should not have committed a violent act and although the punishment is minimum, the court feels this is sufficient by taking into account the number of charges against you,” Kunasundary said. In handing down the sentence she called the offenses not only grave, but abominable.
“The victim, in this case, was 12 years old when she was first raped by the accused, who then continued to rape her 105 times over a period of two years," Deputy Public Prosecutor Nurul Quisinti Qamarul Abrar stated during the proceedings. The rapes were said to have taken place between January 5, 2018 and February 24, 2020.
“As stepfather of the victim, he should have been responsible for protecting the victim but instead he destroyed her self-worth. His action will cause life-long trauma to the victim. Incest cases are appalling and condemnable offences and viewed seriously by every level of society, regardless of religion,” she added.
According to the information presented in court, the girl's parents divorced in 2015 and her mother remarried in November 2016. It was not until the mother took the girl and her younger sister to her aunt's home that she disclosed the abuse.
She had been afraid to do so before then as her step-father had threatened her with further abuse.