Son of Malaysian couple on trial in Sweden recalls worst beating

STOCKHOLM: The eldest son of the Malaysian couple, on trial here for hitting their children, thinks that they will be found guilty and sentenced to jail.

Asked what he thought about the future, Ammar said his parents were likely to be jailed before he would be able to see them.

“I just feel that they’ll be found guilty and put in a real jail,” he said during his fifth pre-recorded interview shown in a Solna district court here yesterday.

However, when the Swedish policewoman asked what he thought of his own future, Ammar said all he could think of was hugging his parents again.

“They’re going to go to jail — I don’t know for days or months — but I feel they’re going to a real jail. When they’re released, I can see them again,” he said.

Tourism Malaysia director Azizul Raheem Awalluddin and his wife Shalwati Nurshal were detained on Dec 18 last year after Ammar told staff at his school that he had been hit, which led to a report on the matter to the authorities.

Now facing their fourth day of trial, Azizul was seen wearing a new black coat and blue tie while Shalwati still wore the same grey jacket over her baju kurung.

Yesterday, Shalwati, who had been seen taking notes during the trial last week, seemed more focused on watching the videos.

In the video interview, Ammar had also admitted that he was rarely hit by his mother with a rotan — “maybe two times a month”.

He also said that although his father sometimes wielded the rotan during Quran classes, he never actually used it.

Asked on the event that he most strongly remembered being beaten by his father, the 12-year-old recalled an occasion during which he had stolen his mother’s credit card to buy a video game.

“I asked my mum to buy it several times but she wouldn’t. So, I decided to take her card and buy it myself,” said Ammar, adding that he returned the card because the transaction failed.

However, he said that when his mother found out, his father beat him as punishment.

Ammar said the reason that this memory had struck him the most was that it made him feel that money was more important to his father than him.

“It was also the fact that it was over a game and that it was the angriest I had ever seen my father,” he added.

This was not the first time that Ammar had mentioned his siblings being beaten over theft.

Ammar had said that his older sister Aishah was also beaten on several occasions for stealing money and chocolates.

On Feb 10, Shalwati and Azizul were charged with multiple counts of gross violation of a child’s integrity by hitting and abusing their children.

The alleged offences took place in the family’s home in Spanga, a Stockholm suburb, between Sept 15, 2010 and Dec 17, 2013.

The trial continues today.