Borneo Bulletin, Bandar Seri Begawan, 21 October 1996

Habitual thief gets sentence after sentence

A Bruneian, Suhimi bin Ramlee, 28, was produced from Jerudong Prison to face theft and mischief charges before Senior Magistrate Hairolarni in Seria Court.

He was charged with committing theft of a radio cassette player, a First Aid Box, a car cigarette lighter and a jacket valued at $500 from a car at Jalan Maulana, Kuala Belait.

For this, he was sentenced to 2 months' imprisonment.

He was sentenced to six months' imprisonment and two strokes of the rotan for two mischief charges of causing damage to two cars.

On Sept 3. at about 11 pm, Suhimi went to his neighbour's house at Jalan Maulana. Seeing nobody around, he approached one car in a garage and used a sharp cutter to cut its rear right side weather strip, managing to open the door.

He took the above mentioned items, causing damage to the car of $150.

He then went to another car and cut open the rear left side door weather strip. He did not find anything valuable in the car, so removed nothing from it. But the damage caused to the car was $150.

He was arrested in Sept 5 and brought to Seria Court to face six theft and five mischief charges and sentenced to 36 months' jail with eight strokes of the rotan.

Suhimi has a long chain of previous convictions for theft.

The Senior Magistrate ordered a sentence of eight months with two strokes of the rotan to run consecutively after he had served his present sentence.

The prosecuting officer was Senior Inspector Yakub bin Ismail.

Borneo Bulletin, Bandar Seri Begawan, 24 October 1996

Child abuse father sentenced

A father of 11, who was convicted of child abuse has been sentenced to a total of 20 years imprisonment and ordered to be whipped by Chief Justice Dato Sir Denys Roberts in the Brunei High Court.

Rosli bin Tahiruddin, faced five charges including two of causing death to his 3-year-old daughter Zulianah and grievous hurt to another two of his children.

Rosli was also given a total of 20 strokes of the rattan.

The alleged offences took place at Rosli's house at Kg. Buang Sakar, Kg. Ayer, Bandar Seri Begawan, the court heard.

Dr. Lim Meng Keng, testified in court that Zulianah was brought to Ripas Hospital on the night of March 27, last year in a critical condition.

She had bruises all over her body and was unconscious.

An ultrasound scan showed that there was massive bleeding behind her eye and an examination revealed that the baby was brain dead.

The injuries had been inflicted on her just few hours before she was brought to the hospital, the court was told.

Rosli explained that the bruises may have resulted from a massage he administered while trying to revive Zulianah when she fell down the stairs.

Dr. Lim commented that it was likely that the child was banged about repeatedly and was shaken violently.

The doctor further told the court that Zulianah did not recover and she died from bleeding of the brain on March 30, 1995.

Rosli was found guilty to the charge of causing death to Zulianah and was sentenced to six years' jail and six strokes.

He also faced the charge of voluntarily causing grievous hurt to his son Zulizan.

The boy was brought to the hospital and was examined by the same doctor.

Zulizan was admitted to the hospital with injuries all over his body a swollen elbow, and lacerations at the back and consistent burn marks.

The boy was examined and shown that he also had bleeding of the brain.

Rosli was convicted of causing grievous hurt to his son Zulizan and was sentenced to another six years and six strokes.

Zurinah bte Dollah is Rosli's second wife and had three children by her, namely Zulianah, Zulizan and Aswan.

She testified in court that her husband loses his temper easily.

She saw Rosli hit Zulizan with hanger and stick. There has also been an occasion when she saw her husband threatening the boy with a lighted cigarette while the boy was crying.

Zurinah said she never attempted to stop Rosli from hurting the children because she was afraid that she, too might get hurt.

The court was convinced that Rosli did intentionally hit Zulizan about 10 times by an instrument which can cause death and a lighted cigarette was also used intentionally to cause hurt to the boy.

Rosli received two years and two strokes for this charge.

Aswan, Rosli's six-month-old son was examined by Dr. Chan and a scan showed a collection of blood in his brain.

The doctor said that the large amount of blood that was found must have been caused by the Shaken-Baby-Syndrome.

Rosli explained that Aswan was injured when he fell down from his aunt's lap.

Dr. Chan contended that the baby's injury resulted from a violent shaking and was not due to a fall.

Aswan was operated on and if not for the operation, the boy would have died.

Rosli received another six years jail and six strokes for the charge of causing grievous hurt to his son Aswan.

He pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Naimah bte Ali, assisted by Deputy Public Prosecutor Aldila bte Hj. Salleh acted as counsels for the prosecution.