Restaurant manager who raped 12yr-old girl - then married her to avoid court will be lashed twice and jailed for 12 years

A man who raped a 12-year-old girl, then married her three months later in an attempt to avoid being taken to court has been jailed for 12 years.

Riduan Masmud, 41, will also be lashed twice after he was found guilty of assaulting his victim in a car parked by a roadside in Inanam, Borneo.

Continue reading after the cut....
The pair met through Facebook where Riduan had posed as a 24-year-old man to win her trust. She met him with a friend who witnessed the assault on February 18 last year.

A member of the girl's family reported the attack to police and Riduan, a former restaurant manager, was charged.

But when he appeared at Sabah Sessions Court in May last year, the father-of-four told the judge he had taken the girl as a second wife under shariah law.

The court ruled that the fact he had married his victim could not be used as mitigation.

Judge Ummu Kalthom Abdul Samad also noted that she had been deprived of her teenage life after stopping school and becoming a housewife, according to The Star.

Sentencing, she ordered him to be jailed for 12 years, be lashed with a rotan – a type of cane – and fined.

He will also be placed under police supervision for a year after serving the sentence.

Riduan has also been charged with three counts of bribery for paying the girl's father 5,000 ringgit (£900) to give his consent to the marriage. Speaking after the hearing, the girl’s aunt said she wanted her life to get back to school and eventually become a doctor.‘We just want her to get on with her life and achieve her dreams,’ she told The Star.
Riduan is appealing the sentence. His lawyer Ram Singh argued that there was no element of force or violence involved and that his client had married the girl, said the Sun Daily.

Child marriage is not uncommon in Malaysia.

The legal marriageable age in the country is 18, but Muslim girls under the age of 16 can marry with permission from religious authorities.

Approximately 60 per cent of Malaysia’s 29 million residents are Muslim.

Activists are calling for an end to child marriages in the country.

Muslims are allowed to have up to four wives in Malaysia. Riduan's children from his first wife are aged three to 18.

-DM

Share your thoughts...thanks!