Couple jailed 24 years for starving maid to death

By Opalyn Mok
May 16, 2013

Soh is led out of court after he was sentenced in the Penang High Court in George Town today. — Pictures by K.E. OoiGEORGE TOWN, May 16 — A couple were sentenced to 24 years’ jail each after they were found guilty of starving their Cambodian maid to death last year.
In his judgment, Justice Datuk Zamani Abdul Rahim said the case had damaged Malaysia’s image as Cambodia wanted to stop sending its citizens here as domestic workers.
Admonishing the couple, Soh Chew Tong and his wife Chin Chui Ling, the judge told that they should not abuse or torture others.

“I also have maids and if they are not suitable, I send them back, what for ‘rotan’ and torture,” Zamani said.
Soh, 44, and Chin, 42, were found guilty of culpable homicide not amounting to murder of Mey Sichan, 24, a Cambodian national, in a shophouse in Taman Asas Murni, Jalan Bukit Minyak.
Mey had been working for the couple since September 2011. She was found dead in a storeroom on the second floor of the shophouse on April 1 last year.
Zamani said the prosecution had proved a case beyond reasonable doubt that the couple had caused the death of Mey under section 304 (a) of the Penal Code for culpable homicide not amounting to murder.
He ordered that the couple serve their sentence from the date of their arrest on April 1 last year.
Chin is led out of court after she was sentenced.He said the evidence presented in court showed that Mey was denied food over a long period of time.
“In totality, the deceased did not receive enough food and had sustained injuries that were inflicted over time which further aggravated her gastric ulcer that led to acute peritonitis and that had caused her death,” he said.
According to the post-mortem report by the consultant forensic pathologist, Mey, who was 148cm tall, weighed only 26.1kg at the time of her death.
“There were scars on her body, 29 old and fresh injuries on her body including lacerations and multiple bruises, and there was a lack of fatty tissue or muscle layer on the wall of her abdominals and chest so the pathologist opined that she had been lacking in food for about a few months,” the judge said.
The couple were originally charged under Section 302 of the Penal Code with murder but the charge was later reduced to culpable homicide not amounting to murder.
Zamani said the couple, as her employers, had a responsibility to provide accommodation, food, medical care and toiletries to Mey without deducting her salary.
“They are duty bound to provide for her welfare and they have both failed to do so and both of them are liable for her death,” he said.
He also said the defence’s evidence, especially the sworn evidence by Chin, was hard to believe and riddled with doubts.
“The defence’s evidence presented is inconsistent and unsupported so it failed to raise reasonable doubt in the prosecution’s case,” he said in a judgment which he took more than an hour to read out.
In mitigation, defence counsel Naizatul Zamrina Karizaman asked for a minimum sentence as the couple are sole providers for their family and they have three school-going children between the ages of three and 17 years.
Deputy public prosecutor Tan Guat Cheng had asked for the maximum sentence as this was a public interest case and also as a deterrent to others.
Later outside the courtroom, the secretary for consular affairs of the Cambodian Embassy, Chhay Kosal, said it was happy that the Malaysian government took stern action against employers who mistreated its maids.
“We feel this is a fair decision and that it will serve as a lesson to all not to abuse their domestic workers,” he said.

Source themalaysianinsider