KUALA LUMPUR: A businessman who is a former aide of a Bersatu assemblyman has been sentenced to 13 years in prison and ordered to be given two strokes of the cane by the Sessions Court here for rape.
Judge Nor Hasniah Ab Razak found Mohd Zulfahimin Mahdzir, 40, guilty of the offence, a written judgment dated July 25 revealed.
The grounds of judgment were obtained by the media yesterday.
Mohd Zulfahimin, then an aide of Gombak Setia assemblyman Muhammad Hilman Idham, was charged with raping the woman between 1am and 3pm on Dec 5, 2020, in a hotel room in Sri Hartamas here, Bernama reported.
The judge sentenced Mohd Zulfahimin on May 31.
In her grounds of judgment, the judge said the defence had failed to raise any reasonable doubt against the prosecution’s case.
She said the court opined that the defence had failed to provide any explanation to refute the testimony of the prosecution witness that the victim was drunk on the night of the incident.
“The court is of the view that the offence committed by the accused is serious and heinous because the accused took the opportunity to rape the victim while she was drunk,” she said.
She said the accused’s claim that the victim had invited him to accompany her did not mean that the woman consented to having sex with him.
She said Zulfahimin’s defence that he did not rape the woman was nothing more than a mere denial and that the chemist’s report showed that the spermatozoa in the victim’s vagina matched that of the accused.
Mohd Zulfahimin was charged under Section 376(1) of the Penal Code, which provides imprisonment for up to 20 years and whipping, upon conviction.
According to the prosecution’s narrative of the case, the victim was invited by Muhammad Hilman to celebrate her birthday with three other friends, including the accused, at the hotel restaurant.
The five individuals and another friend then went to the karaoke centre at the hotel, where the victim got inebriated and had to be taken to a hotel room, which was registered under her name.
Deputy public prosecutors Zilfinaz Abbas and Fazeedah Faik appeared for the prosecution while Mohd Zulfahimin was represented by lawyers Chris Kooi Wei Kit and Aivy Chin Ai Wei.
