Borneo Bulletin, BSB, 25 November 1997

Cops get jail and cane for rape

Two policemen were sent to 14 years in jail and given 12 strokes of the cane for kidnapping and raping a 30-year-old Filipina waitress during a nightmarish three-hour midnight ride, last year in the Brunei capital.

The waitress who was present wept throughout as the Chief Justice Dato Sir Denys Roberts read out the 42-page judgement at the end of a six-day trial.

Police Cpl Abdul Rahman bin Moksin, 39, and Additional Police Officer Pengiran Zainuddin bin Pengiran Sulaiman, 32, both married with children faced the charges of kidnapping the woman, referred in courts as Miss X and gang raping her five times on October 10 last year in Jalan Beribi and in Kampong Perpindahan between 1.30 am and 4.30 am that day.

A police investigator Senior Inspector Gulam Rahmani, 47, was congratulated by the Chief Justice at the end of the case for the excellent work done.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Dayang Aldila binte Hj Mohd Salleh who was assisted by DPP DK Masni binte Pengiran Haji Bahar urging for a deterrent sentence said that the two were police officers who were supposed to maintain the peace and uphold justice but they themselves had become perpetrators of crime.

The women who was a foreigner had been here eight months had no family here and had come to Brunei to earn a living.

"Therefore to say that the two were an embarrassment to the police force were an understatement" she told the court.

The Chief Justice described them as a disgrace to the good name of the Royal Brunei Police Force and he was taking a serious view of the offences and that it was one of the worst cases.

Miss X told the court that one night she asked Jalani bin Junaidi also known as Bisu who is mute to give her a lift to Kg Salambigar in Jalan Muara and the car was stopped at Berakas roundabout by the police and as the police could not get any answers from Bisu they were asked to go to the Gadong traffic police office. There she was Cpl Rahman among other officers.

On the way back from the Gadong traffic police and at the roundabout near the Riverview Hotel their car was blocked by a red car with two people in it.

Cpl Rahman came out of the red car and dragged her out of Bisu's car to the back seat of the red car and waved Bisu on who fled from the scene. Bisu has not been seam since.

Cpl Rahman was still in uniform and got into the back seat. He touched her. He was drinking beer. She got angry. The car drove off and stopped somewhere in Beribi and he dragged her out of her car and made her face the passenger seat and raped her while Zainuddin acted as a lookout.

Later Zainuddin and Rahman raped her in Beribi as well as in Kampong Lambak and Rahman told her, "after I have finished with you I will kill you."

They also made her drink beer and she tried to fight them off while they continued to rape her several times.

She than told them she was hungry and mentioned a restaurant in Gadong.

Zainuddin drove the car to Simpang 21 in Gadong where she said she wanted to urinate. Rahman told her to do it in the car but she refused and got out of the car. She then took off her shoes and ran to her staff quarters which was not far away.

Zainuddin tried to chase her but could not catch her. She got to her staff house at about 5 am and woke up her colleagues Ophelia and Nafisa and told them that she had been raped.

She wanted them to get her handbang from the car and she went down to the red car with her two friends. The police threw down her bag and drove off with Rahman calling out "prostitutes".

A police report was made and later at an identification parade she picked out the two. Defence counsel Nelson Ruki defended Pengiran Zainuddin.