A 57-year-old retired soldier in Kota Kinabalu pleaded not guilty at the Sessions Court to a charge of raping his 12-year-old niece. However, he pleaded guilty to two other charges of sexually assaulting the girl. The court fixed Dec 12 for mention. All three offences were said to have occurred at a village in the southwest Papar district in August this year.
The accused was charged with rape under Section 376(3) of the Penal Code, and with sexual assault under Section 14(a) of the Sexual Offences Against Children Act, read together with Section 16 of the same Act. Sessions Court Judge Amir Shah Amir Hassan sentenced the accused to eight years’ imprisonment and one stroke of the cane under Section 14, and two years’ jail as well as two strokes of the cane under Section 16, with both sentences to run consecutively.
The accused, who was not represented, requested the court to grant leniency to him during mitigation, saying he had a family to care for besides being at an advanced age. Deputy Public Prosecutor Dacia Jane Romanus, however, urged the court to instead impose a deterrent sentence.
