Kota Kinabalu: A 58-year-old former primary school teacher, who was jailed a total of 36 years on two counts of rape, saw his imprisonment sentence reduced to 30 years.
The Court of Appeal Justices Datuk Abdul Karim Abdul Jalil, Dato’ Abu Bakar Jais and Datuk Supang Lian, in their unanimous decision maintained the conviction on the two charges against Zalani Amit but reduced the imprisonment sentence to 15 years each to run consecutively from 18 years each. The court also maintained the whipping sentence of one stroke of the cane on each charge.
The court who heard the appeal via video conferencing earlier, dismissed Zalani’s appeal for the conviction on the remaining two charges be quashed and the sentence be set aside as well as the prosecution’s cross appeal.
Zalani was previously sentenced to a total of 72 years’ jail by the Sessions Court on Oct 30, 2017 after he was found guilty by the Sessions Court on four counts of raping a 12-year-old pupil on Aug 29, Sept 26, Oct 4 and Oct 18, 2014, respectively.
He was sentenced to 18 years’ jail and ordered to be caned once on each count and was ordered to serve the sentence consecutively from the date of his conviction.
Each charge under Section 376 (1) of the Penal Code, carries a jail term of up to 20 years and whipping, on conviction.
On April 25, 2019 the High Court had partly allowed Zalani’s appeal when the court quashed and set aside the conviction and sentence for the first and second charges against him and upheld the conviction and sentence for the third and fourth charges. The prosecution in their cross appeal appealed for the conviction and sentence on the first and second charges to be reinstated and the decision of Sessions Court to be affirmed.
Zalani was represented by counsel Ram Singh, Kimberly Ye and Chen Wen Jye represented Zalani while Deputy Public Prosecutor Zaki Asyraf Zubir appeared for the prosecution.
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