Indonesian maid retracts
rape claim against ex-rep
Paul Yong
In the retraction conveyed by her lawyer, she admits the accusation was fabricated so that she could return home before her contract ended.
The maid’s lawyer, Pathurrahman SH, read her statement in the Ipoh High Court today, The Star reported.
“I regret my action and want to apologise for the testimony I gave in the Malaysian court that was false.
“The testimony given by me was merely for me to get back home,” the report quoted him as reading from the statement.
The maid said she had approached Pathurrahman for legal advice on May 20 last year and expressed her desire to withdraw her previous statements.
“My lawyer (Pathurrahman) advised me that it was within my right to do so and that it was better to free an innocent person than make false accusations.”
“With full awareness, and without any coercion or intimidation from any party, I withdraw the information provided in the Malaysian High Court,” he read her statement before Justice Abdul Wahab Mohamed.
Pathurrahman was called as a witness by the defence after the Federal Court, on Nov 2 last year, allowed additional evidence in Yong’s appeal.
In his witness statement, Pathurrahman confirmed that he had advised her on her legal rights and drafted a notarised letter confirming the retraction on May 22, 2024.
During cross-examination, state prosecution director Zaki Abdul Kudos asked why the maid, who was fluent in Bahasa Malaysia, had written the statement in Bahasa Indonesia.
Pathurrahman explained that the letter was based on the maid’s spoken words in Bahasa Indonesia.
Zaki then questioned the credibility of the maid’s statement, suggesting it was based on the lawyer’s words rather than hers.
“The incident happened in 2019, with the trial ending two years ago.
“How is it possible that the maid remembers all the dates, the address of the employer and so forth so clearly?” he asked, claiming that the maid might have been coerced into writing the letter after returning home from witness protection.
Pathurrahman maintained that the letter was based on the maid’s own account of events, saying that she had reviewed and agreed to the contents before signing it.
Justice Abdul Wahab then set March 7 for the delivery of his opinion, which will be submitted to the Federal Court for the appeal hearing scheduled on March 17.
The defence team is led by senior counsel Hisyam Teh Poh Teik, Rajpal Singh and Salim Bashir, while Zaki is assisted by Liyana Zawani Radzi, Nasrul Hadi Abdul Ghani and Qurratu’äini Khalifah.
On July 27, 2022, the Ipoh High Court found Yong guilty of raping his 23-year-old Indonesian maid in a room at his house in Ipoh, between 8.15pm and 9.15pm, on July 7, 2019.
On March 1, 2024, the Court of Appeal, in a 2-1 majority decision, upheld Yong’s conviction, with Justices Hadhariah Syed Ismail and Azman Abdullah in favour and Justice S Komathy dissenting.
The appeals court, however, reduced Yong’s prison sentence from 13 years to eight years and two strokes of the cane.
Yong appealed the decision to the Federal Court, which allowed him to present additional evidence in his appeal on Nov 12.
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