Sabah restaurant manager charged with rape of underage wife loses plea to be with her
Riduan Masmud
KOTA KINABALU: The appeal of 40-year-old restaurant manager Riduan Masmud to be with his 13-year-old second wife, who he was accused of raping in February this year, has been rejected.
Sessions court judge Ummu Kalthom Samad rejected his plea before the prosecution closed the case on Thursday, saying it was because the case was ongoing.
Riduan, who is representing himself after his counsel Loretto Padua discharged himself from the case on Sept 19, will know his fate come Dec 11. He has until Nov 28 to file his submissions simultaneously with the deputy public prosecutor.
Earlier in the trial, Riduan asked the court whether he was still banned from meeting his second wife and his in-laws, as he "needed to fulfill his duties", to which the judge objected.
"The accused and the victim are still not allowed to meet as this case is not finished yet," the judge said.
Riduan, a father of four children aged between two and 17, was charged with raping the schoolgirl in a parked vehicle on a road heading towards the Kionsom waterfall, between 9am and 10am on Feb 18.
He married the girl in May and efforts were made to withdraw the case against him.
A 40-year-old restaurant manager claimed to be a 24-year-old bachelor in his Facebook page to lure a schoolgirl who was eventually raped, the Sessions Court heard.
The girl’s aunt told the court here that her 13-year-old niece (the victim) had told her that she knew him as Joey Gege, the name he used on his Facebook page.
The aunt was testifying in the statutory rape trial of Riduan Masmud, who married the girl in May after he was charged on Feb 28.
She added that the victim related this to her when she questioned her about returning home at 7.30pm on Feb 18, the day of the rape.
She said that her niece initially did not admit to having been raped as she claimed that she was held at a teachers’ room in the school.
“Then I asked her what she was doing in the teachers’ room and she replied: ‘Nothing.’ Then I asked whether it was true that she had been raped.”
The aunt said that she was earlier informed about the incident by a neighbour’s daughter who was inside the car with the victim during the incident.
“She then started crying and admitted to being raped in the morning by a man she had only known from Facebook,” said the aunt.
According to the aunt, her niece and her neighbour’s daughter had left for school early – at about 9am – using a public bus instead of the school bus as they had told her that they needed to get some co-curriculum books from a teacher.
She said that the neighbour’s daughter had come home crying and in a panicked state and said that her niece had been raped at about 10am on that day (Feb 18).
“I asked if she saw what had happened and she (the neighbour’s daughter) said that she even saw the man pull up her friend’s baju kurung before raping her in the car,” she testified.
The aunt said that her neighbour’s daughter had told her they were locked inside the car and could not get out when she asked her (the neighbour’s daughter) why she did not bring home her niece after she managed to escape.
“She told me that the car’s doors were locked after she managed to get out.
“So she could not bring the other girl with her,” the aunt told Sessions judge Ummu Kalthom.
Later in the day, the victim testified in camera.
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