March 23, 2012
Singapore. Indonesian maid Vitria Wahyuni, jailed in Singapore for 10 years for strangling her 87-year-old employer, may get a heavier term. The possibility has arisen after prosecutors filed an appeal against the sentence earlier this week.
Vitria had pleaded guilty in the High Court earlier this month to culpable homicide for the death of Madam Sng Gek Wah on Nov. 25, 2009, at the latter’s terrace house in Serangoon Gardens.
The maid, aged 16 at the time, was just four days into the job.
The court was told then that she was angry with Madam Sng who had chided her for even small lapses at work. She had used a pillow to suffocate the woman who was asleep but when she struggled, Vitria strangled her.
Prosecutors during the High Court hearing had urged the court to consider at least a 20-year jail term, claiming Vitria had killed deliberately and ‘with premeditation, as opposed to a situation in which it was done on the spur of the moment, in ‘hot blood’.’
Deputy Public Prosecutor Christina Koh said the nature of the injuries inflicted on Madam Sng showed a ‘cruel streak’ on Vitria’s part.
Justice Choo Han Teck, in decision grounds, took into account Vitria’s lot — she was poor, harshly treated, young and impulsive.
Her defense lawyer Mohd Muzammil Mohd had, among other things, pointed to her father who had lied and got her a false passport with a false name and declared her to be aged 23.
She was already a divorcee and a mother of one when she came here to work to pay for her father’s medical treatment.
The maximum punishment for culpable homicide has been raised to 20 years’ jail or life imprisonment — up from 10 years’ jail or life before 2007.
The case before the Court of Appeal could turn on this change and lead to new guidelines on sentencing being set by the apex court for a case of this nature.
Justice Choo acknowledged that the law had been changed to increase the maximum sentence for her crime to 20 years.
But he made it clear that Vitria’s case did not merit a higher sentence although “it may be so in the appropriate case.”
(x the JG)
vr 23 maa 2012 - 6:48