SHAH ALAM: Night-market trader A. Murugan was yesterday sent to the gallows for the murder of Indonesian maid Muntik Bani who was starved and beaten until she was paralysed before she died.
In passing judgment, judge Mohd Yazid Mustafa said he found overwhelming evidence that Murugan had slapped, kicked, beaten, and starved Muntik for two days in the toilet of his house in Klang.
Murugan, 36, looked calm when sentence was passed.
Yazid, who took almost two hours to read his written judgment, said Muntik was in a good physical condition when she ran away from her former employer on Sept 17 last year.
"Witnesses had testified that she appeared thin and weak but looked physically fine," the judge said, adding that she had never left Murugan's house until police found her on Oct 20.
By then, she was dehydrated, weak, and was paralysed from the waist down. She succumbed to her injuries at the Tengku Ampuan Rahimah Hospital six days later.
The victim suffered 63 injuries. Witnesses testified that they saw Murugan beating, kicking and slapping Muntik.
One of the neighbours had also testified that she saw Muntik crawling on the floor of the house asking passers-by for help, just before she was locked in the toilet for two days.
"These were the injuries which caused the victim's death. These injuries were not from a fall," Yazid said, in dismissing Murugan's defence that the maid was already injured when she came to him.
The judge also took into account Muntik's dying declaration that it was Murugan who had inflicted her injuries. Yazid also dismissed Murugan's denial of beating the maid and locking her in the toilet.
In Murugan's defence, he claimed that he had taken Muntik in after she told him that she was abused by her former employer.
He had told the court that when he took her in, Muntik already had injuries on her face, leg and body. He claimed he did not lodge a police report as she did not have her passport.
"His testimony was unconvincing," the judge ruled.
"No decent person would take in a badly injured maid to work for him."
DPP Idham Abd Ghani, Mohd Dusuki Mokhtar and Siti Fatimah Yahya prosecuted while counsel V. Rajehgopal represented the accused. A total of 51 witnesses testified in the trial.
Murugan was charged with murdering Muntik at his house at No.11, Jalan Datuk Yusof Shahbudin 6 in Taman Sentosa, Klang between Oct 18 and 20 last year.
The prosecution had adduced evidence saying that Muntik went to work with Murugan after running away from her former employer, whom she had worked with for almost five years.
Murugan is married to D. Vanitha, who works as a cleaner. She was not present in court yesterday. Murugan and Vanitha have a 2-year-old son.
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