PUTRAJAYA: A housewife appealing against an eight-year jail sentence for causing grievious hurt to her maid has successfully applied to the Court of Appeal for the temporary use of her impounded passport to perform umrah (minor Haj).
A three-man panel comprising Justices Datuk Umi Kalthum Abdul Majid, Datuk Harmindar Singh Dhaliwal and Datuk Stephen Chung Hian Guan allowed Rozita Mohamad Ali’s application for the return of her passport.
Justice Umi Kalthum, who led the panel, however, imposed an additional sum of RM5,000 on her bail of RM25,000.
She also ordered Rozita, 45, to return her passport to the court on April 17.
Rozita, through her counsel Luqman Mazlan, had applied for the return of her passport to enable her to perform umrah from April 4 to 14.
DPP Ku Hayati Ku Haron did not object to the application but requested the court to impose an additional sum of RM10,000 on her bail amount, saying Rozita was a convicted person.
Rozita was let off with a good behaviour bond of five years with a surety of RM20,000 after she pleaded guilty at the Petaling Jaya Sessions Court in March last year to a lesser charge of causing grievous hurt to her 19-year-old Indonesian maid Suyanti Sutrinso at a house in Mutiara Damansara, Petaling Jaya, on June 21, 2016.
She was initially charged with attempted murder but the charge was amended to one of causing grievous hurt.
The case was then called up for revision by High Court Judge Datuk Seri Tun Majid Tun Hamzah who reversed the Sessions Court’s decision and imposed an eight-year jail term on Rozita after ruling that the bond of five years was inappropriate.
Rozita was initially detained in prison when the Shah Alam High Court rejected her application for a stay of the execution of her jail sentence.
However, last year, the Court of Appeal granted her the stay of execution and freed her on RM25,000 bail in two sureties pending disposal of her appeal against the jail sentence.
The Court of Appeal had also ordered for her travel document to be impounded. — Bernama