By Dorcas Ting
KUCHING, Dec 11: The Sessions Court here today sentenced a man to a total of 54 years’ imprisonment and 24 strokes of the rotan for raping his 13-year-old niece.
Sessions Court judge Jason Juga handed down the sentence on Muhammad Fazal Gudam, 33, who pleaded guilty to all four charges framed against him.
For a charge under Subsection 14(a) of the Sexual Offences Against Children Act 2017 and punishable under Section 14 of the same Act, he was accused of committing physical sexual assault against his 13-year-old victim at a contract workers’ house at Jalan P Ramlee on February 10, 2018, at about 11pm.
For this charge, he was sentenced to 10 years’ jail and 2 strokes of rotan.
The accused was slapped with three charges under Section 376 (3) of the Penal Code, which carries a jail term of not less than eight years and not more than 30 years and also whipping of not less than 10 strokes.
In the first charge, he was accused of attempting to rape the victim on February 10, 2018, at about 11pm at the contract workers’ house in Jalan P Ramlee. This charge is to be read together with Section 511 of the same Code. For this charge, he was sentenced to imprisonment of 10 years and two strokes of rotan.
As for the second and third charges, he was accused of raping the victim twice, between February 10 and 11; and for these, he was sentenced to 17 years’ jail and 10 strokes of the rotan each.
The court ordered the sentences to run concurrently, meaning he is required to serve only 17 years behind bars and 24 strokes of rotan.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Azahari Yusof prosecuted, while the accused was represented by Muhamad Shahirun Azri Mohd Nordin from Jabatan Bantuan Guaman. — DayakDaily
