Bella was chubby when handed over to Siti Bainun, says witness

KUALA LUMPUR: A good friend of Rumah Bonda founder Siti Bainun Ahd Razali told the Sessions Court here on Thursday (March 31) that she only knew the teenage girl who suffered from Down Syndrome and known as Bella around July 2020, on the first day Bella was placed under Siti Bainun’s care.

An assistant manager of a company, Zurianty Sudin, 39, who served as a volunteer at Rumah Bonda between 2015 and 2019, described Bella as being chubby when she first met the girl on July 14, 2020.

However, when asked by lawyer Nur A’minahtul Mardiah Md Nor, who was representing Siti Bainun, regarding certain aspects of Bella’s history, like the first time Bella was found under a bridge when she was four years old in Seri Petaling and subsequently being cared for by the Social Welfare Department, the witness answered: "don’t know”.

She said this when cross-examined by Nur A’minahtul on the second day of Siti Bainun’s trial, who faces charges of neglecting and abusing the 13-year-old girl.

Replying to the lawyer’s question, the first prosecution witness agreed that Bella, who was a person with disabilities (PwD), could not differentiate between paper and shirt, uttered profanities and hit the head of babies besides picking up the sweets and eating them.

Zurianty also denied the lawyer’s suggestions that she was someone who frequently twisted words and lied in court.

Nur A’minahtul then referred to a recording of a witness conversation in accordance with Section 112 of the Criminal Procedure Code between Zurianty and the mother of an adopted child of the accused, in which the witness claimed that Siti Bainun wanted to blame her other three adopted children for the incident that befell Bella.

Zurianty did not agree with the lawyer’s suggestion that she herself had issued the statement to influence the mother of Siti Bainun’s adopted child.

Siti Bainun, 30, pleaded not guilty to two counts of abandonment and abusing a 13-year-old Down Syndrome teenage girl that resulted in the victim sustaining physical and emotional injuries in a condominium in Wangsa Maju here between February and June 2021, under Section 31(1)(a) of the Child Act 2001, which is punishable by a maximum sentence of 20 years’ imprisonment or a RM50,000 fine or both.

The trial in front of Judge Izralizam Sanusi resumes on Friday (April 1).- Bernama