PUTRAJAYA: The Federal Court has fixed Oct 23 to hear former Tronoh assemblyman Paul Yong Choo Kiong’s appeal against the Court of Appeal majority decision that upheld his conviction for raping his maid five years ago.
Yong’s lawyer Datuk Rajpal Singh confirmed the hearing date when contacted on Thursday (Sept 5).
On March 1, the Court of Appeal dismissed Yong’s appeal and upheld his conviction for the offence in a 2-1 decision.
The appellate court's three-member panel did, however, reduce his prison term from 13 years to eight, with two strokes of the cane.
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It also allowed a stay of execution pending disposal of his appeal at the Federal Court.
Yong was released on RM30,000 bail with one surety and ordered to surrender his passport to the court.
The majority decision by Justices Datuk Hadhariah Syed Ismail and Datuk Azman Abdullah found the victim to be a credible witness.
They held that sexual intercourse had taken place without the victim’s consent and medical evidence supported her testimony that she was raped.
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In a dissenting view, Justice Datuk SM Komathy ruled that the conviction was unsafe as Yong was seriously prejudiced by the trial judge’s decision to give a protection order to two witnesses under Section 265A of the Criminal Procedure Code.
On July 27, 2022 the Ipoh High Court found Yong guilty of raping a 23-year-old Indonesian maid in a room of his house in the city between 8.15pm and 9.15pm on July 7, 2019. – Bernama
