PUTRAJAYA: A rubber tapper will have to serve a 12-year jail term after all, for raping his niece about five years ago.
This follows the Court of Appeal’s dismissal of the 52-year-old’s appeal yesterday, on his conviction and jail sentence.
Justice Datuk Suriyadi Halim Omar, chairing a three-man panel, ordered the man to serve the jail sentence from yesterday.
He was allowed to be freed on bail of RM10,000 with one surety, by the High Court, pending appeal to the Court of Appeal.
The panel, which also comprises justices Datuk Hasan Lah and Datuk Ahmad Maarop, however, spared him the six strokes of rotan because he was above 50 years of age.
The man escaped the mandatory caning provided for under the amended Penal Code for men above 50 years of age convicted of rape because the offence took place in 2005, which was before the amendment, on March 6, 2007.
Prior to the amendment, men above the age of 50 were spared the rotan.
In the proceedings yesterday, the man tried to persuade the court to retract the charge against him by producing a letter from the girl, who is the complainant, but Suriyadi declined his request, saying that his case was at the appellate stage.
The Taiping Sessions Court, on July 28, 2006, sentenced him to 12 years’ jail and six strokes of rotan after finding him guilty of raping the girl who was then 12 years and 11 months old, at a jungle fringe of a Chinese cemetery in Pokok Assam, Perak about 10am on Jan 3, 2005.
The High Court upheld his conviction and jail term on May 7, last year. — Bernama