LESS than three weeks into the year 2004, Malaysians were horrified when two 10-year-old girls were abducted, raped and murdered in two separate cases in Tanjung Kupang, Johor Baru and Menggatal in Sabah.
Early on Jan 8, Year Four pupil Haserawati Saridi left her house in Kampung Ratau, Tebobon, Menggatal for school when she was waylaid by a drug addict along her way on foot.
The little girl screamed for help when her attacker, Jamaluddin Saripudin, then aged 26, grabbed and dragged her into some bushes before undressing the child and raping her. When he was done, he stabbed the girl and left her for dead.
It was not long before he was arrested and charged for the crime. He was sentenced two months later to 20 years imprisonment and 24 strokes of the rotan for raping Haserawati. In 2009, he was sentenced to death for killing her.
Six years later, the drug user who has past convictions for other crimes, lost an appeal against the death sentence when the Federal Court upheld the penalty.
As the nation was reeling from anger over Haserawati’s killing, nine days later, another Year Four student suffered the same fate in Johor Baru in the morning of Jan 17, 2004.
Nurul Huda Abdul Ghani had left for a sundry shop near her house to buy groceries but when she did not return after 30 minutes, her family went in search for her.
Hours later, the search led family members to a Tenaga Nasional substation at Tanjung Kupang in Gelang Patah.
However, a security guard at the power station refused them entry to search for the victim. The guard’s actions raised suspicion of the search party, prompting Nurul Huda’s older brother to call the police.
On arrival, police searched the substation. Minutes later, the victim’s brother found Nurul Huda in the nude and barely alive in a guardhouse at the substation. As her brother lifted her, she breathed her last.
The security guard, Mohd Abbas Danus Baksan, then aged 48, was arrested and charged for the crime.
He confessed that he had gang-raped the young girl together with two other men but denied killing her.
Police managed to arrest a second suspect but he was freed days later due to lack of evidence. A third suspect remains at large.
Mohd Abbas was sentenced to 20 years jail and 24 strokes of the rotan for raping the girl.
As for murdering the girl, he was initially given the death sentence but following an appeal, it was overturned by the Federal Court based on the existence of a third suspect, who is said to have been responsible for killing Nurul Huda.
Read this story on our iPaper:
