Man pleads guilty to rape, sodomy of Aussie woman in cemetery
S. Prasanth, 25, made the guilty plea after the charges were read to him twice, once in Bahasa Malaysia and another in Tamil, by the court interpreters before judge Juraidah Abbas.
On the first count, Prasanth admitted to raping the Australian citizen inside a Perodua Axia, and at the time of committing the offence, had placed the victim in fear of death or injury by pointing pair of scissors at her.
He committed the offence at the Hong Seng Estate Chinese cemetery between 5.20am and 6pm on June 28.
He was charged under Section 376(2)(b) of the Penal Code, which carries between 10 years and 30 years and whipping upon conviction.
On the second count, Prasanth admitted to committing sodomy on the victim at the same place, time and day.
He was charged under Section 377C of the Penal Code, which carries between five years and 20 years and whipping upon conviction.
State prosecution director Mohd Nordin Ismail and Deputy Public Prosecutor Lee Jun Keong prosecuted while the accused was unrepresented.
Nordin asked the court not to grant bail as both offences were serious. He said if the court decides to grant bail, it should set bail at RM100,000 for each of the charges.
"The charges showed that the actions against the victim were cruel, as it happened inside a car at a Chinese cemetery in the early hours of the morning.
"Also, why did the accused have with him a pair of scissors? All these show that he had the intention to take advantage of the victim.
"This case is certainly of public interest, and as such, we are of the view that bail should not be granted.
Nordin also urged the court to take into consideration the sensitivity of the good relations between Malaysia and Australia.
"We have to send a loud message out there that we do not condone such actions, failing which this may lead to similar cases in future," he said.
Nordin said if bail was granted, the accused should report himself to the nearest police station once a month and surrender his passport to the court.
"He should also refrain from disturbing the prosecution witnesses," he added.
Meanwhile, Prasanth asked the court to grant him bail, said he had a 66-year-old mother and a father, who was not working.
"I, myself, am also working in a part-time job," he said.
Juraidah did not grant bail and set July 31 for mention and for the accused to appoint a lawyer and document submissions.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New Straits Times
42 minutes ago
- New Straits Times
Ex-judge loses appeal in RM100mil defamation suit against Sarawak Report editor
PUTRAJAYA: Former Sessions Court judge Mabel Sheela Muttiah has lost her appeal against a Kuala Lumpur High Court decision that dismissed her RM100 million defamation suit against Sarawak Report editor Clare Rewcastle Brown on a technicality. The technical grounds were Mabel's failure to translate two allegedly defamatory articles into Bahasa Melayu, a mandatory requirement for all pleadings filed in court in her suit over three articles. One of the article s was a 2015 Sarawak Report piece titled "How AG's office connived to prevent a second post-mortem on Kevin Morais — Exclusive Expose". A three-judge Court of Appeal (CoA) panel led by Datuk Azizah Nawawi today (July 14) dismissed Mabel's appeal, saying they were bound by another CoA ruling that a plaintiff must provide a Bahasa Malaysia text of an impugned defamatory article. "In this case, there was no Bahasa Malaysia translation of the impugned defamatory article, and that was clearly a non-compliance with Order 92 Rule 1 of the Rules of Court 2012. "We find there is no appealable error by the High Court. "The appeal is therefore dismissed with costs," she said. The court ordered Mabel to pay RM10,000 in costs to Rewcastle Brown. Azizah sat with judges Datuk Azizul Azmi Adnan and Datuk Ahmad Fairuz Zainol Abidin. Lawyers Guok Ngek Seong and Phyllia Lim acted for Rewcastle Brown while Mabel was represented by lawyers Datuk David Gurupatham and R. Venothani. Mabel was once a special officer to former attorney-general Tan Sri Mohamed Apandi Ali. In May last year, then High Court Judicial Commissioner (now judge) Datuk Raja Ahmad Mohzanuddin Shah Raja Mohzan said the requirement for complete pleadings in Bahasa Melayu is attributed to the language's supremacy as a national language. He said this was enshrined in Article 152 of the Federal Constitution and Section 8 of the National Language Act 1963/67 and Order 92 Rule 1 of the Rules of Court 2012. He said Mabel made an inference about the meaning of the articles and ruled that he would have awarded RM1 million in damages as one of the three articles was defamatory and injured her reputation, but there was still no certified translation in Bahasa Melayu.
Borneo Post
3 hours ago
- Borneo Post
Man fined RM10,000 for breaking wife's car windscreens, windows in Sibu
Photo for illustration purposes only. SIBU (July 14): A 43-year-old man was fined RM10,000 in default one year's imprisonment by the Magistrates' Court here today for committing mischief by breaking his wife's car windscreens and windows. Yong Kai Seng, from Pasai Siong here, pleaded guilty before Magistrate Romario Jonoi to a charge under Section 427 of the Penal Code. The Section provides for a minimum of one year's imprisonment or a fine or both upon conviction. The accused failed to pay the fine. He committed the offence at an unnumbered house in Lorong Bahagia Selatan 4 here at around 3.44pm on July 2. Based on the facts of the case, the complainant, who is the accused's wife, received a video sent via WhatsApp by her foster sister showing the accused breaking the front and rear windscreens and windows of a car registered under the complainant's name using a hammer. He was arrested at about 11.25am on July 3 following a police report lodged by the complainant. Investigations found the accused had recorded the video himself and sent it to his wife's foster sister with the purpose of asking the complainant to meet in order to resolve their personal problems. The broken windows were repaired with a cost amounting to RM2,000. ASP Siti Mariyah Dahari prosecuted the case while the accused was unrepresented by a legal counsel. break windows lead mischief
The Star
3 hours ago
- The Star
'Las Vegas in Laos': the riverside city awash with crime
VAN PAK LEN, Laos: Rising from the muddy fields on the Mekong riverbank in Laos, a lotus tops a casino in a sprawling city which analysts decry as a centre for cybercrime. Shabby, mismatched facades - including an Iberian-style plaza replete with a church tower, turrets and statues - stand alongside high-rise shells. The Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone (GTSEZ) is the most prominent of more than 90 such areas established across the Mekong region in recent years, often offering people reduced taxes or government regulation. Traffic signs in the GTSEZ are in Chinese script, while everything from cigarettes to jade and fake Christian Dior bags are sold in China's yuan. Analysts say the towers are leased out as centres operating finance and romance scams online, a multibillion-dollar industry that shows no signs of abating despite Beijing-backed crackdowns in the region. The GTSEZ was set up in 2007, when the Laos government granted the Kings Romans Group a 99-year lease on the area. Ostensibly an urban development project to attract tourists with casinos and resorts, away from official oversight international authorities and analysts say it quickly became a centre for money laundering and trafficking. The city has now evolved, they say, into a cybercrime hub that can draw workers from around the world with better-paying jobs than back home. Laundry hung out to dry on the balconies of one high-rise building supposed to be a tourist hotel, while the wide and palm-lined boulevards were eerily quiet. It is a "juxtaposition of the grim and the bling", according to Richard Horsey of the International Crisis Group. It gives the "impression of opulence, a sort of Las Vegas in Laos", he said, but it is underpinned by the "grim reality" of a lucrative criminal ecosystem. In the daytime a few gamblers placed their bets at the blackjack tables in the city's centrepiece Kings Romans Casino, where a Rolls Royce was parked outside. "There are people from many different countries here," said one driver offering golf buggy tours of the city, who requested anonymity for security reasons. "Indians, Filipinos, Russians and (people from) Africa." "The Chinese mostly own the businesses," he added. Cyberfraud compounds have proliferated in special economic zones across South-East Asia, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. Kings Romans' importance as a "storage, trafficking, deal-making, and laundering hub (is) likely to expand", it said in a report last year, despite crackdowns on illegal activities. The founder of the Kings Romans Group and the GTSEZ is Zhao Wei, a Chinese businessman with close links to the Laos government, which has given him medals for his development projects. He and three associates, along with three of his companies, were sanctioned by the US Treasury in 2018 over what it called "an array of horrendous illicit activities" including human, drug and wildlife trafficking and child prostitution. Britain sanctioned him in 2023, saying he was responsible for trafficking people to the economic zone. "They were forced to work as scammers targeting English-speaking individuals and subject to physical abuse and further cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment," Britain's Treasury said. The same year and again last August, authorities in China and Laos cracked down on cyberfraud operations in the GTSEZ, raiding offices and arresting hundreds of suspects. With public anger in China mounting, over both scamming itself and alleged kidnappings, Beijing instigated raids this year on centres in Myanmar and Cambodia. The operations primarily targeted Chinese workers, thousands of whom were released and repatriated, along with hundreds of other foreigners. Some say they are trafficking victims or were tricked and forced to scam people online, but some authorities say they are there voluntarily. Scammers have adapted by shifting their locations and targets, specialists say, and Horsey explained that trafficking and abuses have reduced as the business model has developed. "If you're trying to scale and produce a huge business... violence doesn't always pay," he said. "It's better to have motivated workers who aren't scared, who aren't looking over their shoulder, who are actually free to... do their job." Beijing realises it cannot completely stop criminality in the region, so prefers to manage it, he added. Chinese authorities can "pick up the phone" to Zhao and tell him: "Don't do this, limit this, don't target Chinese people", he said. That "is actually more valuable for China than trying to eradicate it everywhere and just lose all influence over it". The United States Institute for Peace estimated in 2024 that Mekong-based criminal syndicates were probably stealing more than US$43.8 billion annually. Representatives of both the GTSEZ and Kings Romans did not respond to AFP's repeated requests for comment, while Zhao could not be reached. The Laos government could not be reached for comment, but the official Lao News Agency said after last year's busts that the country was "committed to decisively addressing and eliminating cyber-scam" activity. - AFP
