KOTA BHARU — ‘Tolong ringankan hukuman saya, saya sudah taubat dan saya mahu kembali kepada anak-anak kerana mahu membimbing mereka’.
Demikian rayuan seorang buruh sebelum Mahkamah Sesyen, di sini, hari ini menjatuhkan hukuman penjara 72 tahun dan 60 sebatan atas enam pertuduhan merogol anak kandungnya berusia 15 tahun sehingga melahirkan anak di Kuala Krai, tahun lalu.
Hakim Zulkifli Abllah menjatuhkan hukuman selepas tertuduh yang berusia 46 tahun mengaku bersalah terhadap kesemua pertuduhan yang dibacakan terhadapnya.
Mahkamah menjatuhkan hukuman penjara 12 tahun dan 10 sebatan bagi setiap pertuduhan dan hukuman berkenaan berjalan secara berasingan.
Mahkamah juga memerintahkan tertuduh menjalani rehabilitasi dan kaunseling ketika berada di penjara selain pengawasan polis selama setahun selepas tamat hukuman.
Tertuduh didakwa merogol anak kandungnya berusia 15 tahun ketika kejadian tanpa kerelaan yang mana perhubungan tertuduh dengan mangsa adalah tidak dibenarkan mengikut undang-undang, hukum agama dan adat.
Perbuatan itu dilakukan di lokasi sama iaitu sebuah rumah di Kampung Manek Urai, Kuala Krai antara Januari hingga Oktober 2023 sekitar jam 1 pagi sehingga 10 pagi.
Tertuduh didakwa mengikut Seksyen 376(3) Kanun Keseksaan yang jika sabit kesalahan boleh dipenjara sehingga 30 tahun dan juga 10 sebatan.
Pendakwaan dilakukan Timbalan Pendakwa Raya, Kamarul Hasyime Rosli, manakala tertuduh tidak diwakili peguam.
Terdahulu, Kamarul Hasyime memohon hukuman setimpal dikenakan supaya memberi pengajaran kepada tertuduh memandangkan mangsa adalah anak kandungnya dan perbuatan terkutuk itu menyebabkan mangsa hamil dan melahirkan anak lelaki.
Tertuduh pula menerusi rayuannya memohon hukuman ringan dikenakan memandangkan anak-anaknya masih kecil selain masih memerlukannya sebagai bapa.
“Saya sudah insaf dan berjanji tidak akan mengulangi perbuatan itu,” katanya.
KUALA TERENGGANU — Seorang tukang urut dipenjara lima tahun di Mahkamah Sesyen di sini hari ini atas tuduhan melakukan amang seksual fizikal terhadap remaja perempuan yang juga pelanggannya.
Hakim Mohd Zul Zakiqudin Zulkifli membuat keputusan itu selepas tertuduh, Ishak Abdul Rahman,57, didapati bersalah terhadap pertuduhan berkenaan.
Mengikut pertuduhan, tertuduh didakwa melakukan amang seksual fizikal terhadap mangsa yang ketika kejadian berusia 16 tahun 10 bulan di sebuah pondok di Dungun, jam 8.45 malam pada 21 Februari 2023.
Bagi kesalahan itu, tertuduh didakwa mengikut Seksyen 14 (d) Akta Kesalahan-kesalahan Seksual Terhadap Kanak-kanak 2017.
Mahkamah mengarahkan hukuman penjara ke atas tertuduh bermula daripada tarikh sabitan iaitu hari ini.
Pendakwaan dikendalikan Timbalan Pendakwa Raya, Noradila Ab Latif manakala tertuduh diwakili peguam, Nor Azri Mohd Arif.
IPOH — Seorang mekanik maut tersepit antara dua kenderaan ketika sedang membaiki sebuah treler rosak di Kilometer (KM) 286.6 Lebuhraya Utara-Selatan (PLUS), arah utara, dekat Simpang Pulai, di sini, awal pagi tadi.
Dalam kejadian pada jam 1.35 pagi itu, Mohammad Marinoor Chik, 60, tersepit antara bahagian hadapan treler dengan bahagian belakang van miliknya.
Ketua Polis Daerah Ipoh, Asisten Komisioner Abang Zainal Abidin Abang Ahmad, berkata siasatan awal mendapati, mangsa menghentikan van dinaikinya di kiri bahu jalan untuk membaiki treler
Katanya, tidak lama kemudian, seorang lelaki berusia 36 tahun yang juga rakan setugas mangsa hadir ke lokasi kejadian dengan memandu van berlainan dan berhenti di hadapan kenderaan mangsa.
“Ketika mangsa sedang membaiki treler yang rosak itu, secara tiba-tiba rakan setugas mangsa mengundurkan kenderaannya ke belakang dengan laju lalu melanggar van mangsa.
“Akibat perlanggaran itu, van mangsa menggelongsor ke belakang dan menghimpit mangsa yang berada di tengah-tengah antara treler dan vannya itu.
“Rakan setugas mangsa kemudian melarikan diri dari tempat kejadian,” katanya dalam kenyataan, hari ini.
Beliau berkata, mangsa yang parah disahkan meninggal dunia di tempat kejadian dan dihantar ke Hospital Raja Permaisuri Bainun untuk dibedah siasat.
“Pemandu treler dan rakan setugas mangsa tidak mengalami sebarang kecederaan.
“Kes disiasat mengikut Seksyen 41(1) Akta Pengangkutan Jalan 1987 iaitu menyebabkan kematian kerana memandu melulu atau membahayakan,” katanya.
Orang awam yang menyaksikan kemalangan terbabit diminta menghubungi pegawai penyiasat kes, Inspektor Edwin Tang Chiew Song di talian 016-5506863 atau tampil ke balai polis berhampiran bagi membantu siasatan.
ALOR GAJAH — Perjalanan pulang seorang pekerja kilang berakhir tragedi apabila maut selepas motosikal ditunggangi dipercayai dihempap pokok tumbang di Jalan Industri Kelemak, di sini pagi tadi.
Dalam kejadian kira-kira jam 6.30 pagi, mangsa, Ikhmal Hakimi Hasrul Rizuan,18, yang menunggang motosikal Benelli maut di lokasi kejadian akibat parah di kepala.
Ketua Polis Daerah Alor Gajah, Superintendan Ashari Abu Samah, berkata polis menerima laporan kemalangan itu pada jam 6.50 pagi.
Menurutnya, berdasarkan siasatan awal, mangsa dalam perjalanan pulang dari arah Alor Gajah menghala ke rumah di Taman Lendu Bakti, Masjid Tanah, di sini.
“Ketika tiba di lokasi dipercayai sebatang pokok tumbang menghempap tangki motosikal sehingga menyebabkan penunggang jatuh di atas jalan.
“Mangsa disahkan meninggal dunia di tempat kejadian akibat kecederaan di kepala.
“Mayatnya dibawa ke Unit Forensik Hospital Alor Gajah untuk proses bedah siasat dan kenderaan terbabit ditahan untuk dibawa ke Puspakom bagi pemeriksaan kenderaan,” katanya dalam kenyataan hari ini.
Ashari berkata, pihaknya sedang mengesan saksi bagi membantu siasatan dan kes disiasat mengikut Seksyen 41(1) Akta Pengangkutan Jalan 1987.
Clockwise, from top left: Peru’s former president Alberto Fujimori after winning re-election in April 1995; reviewing the guard of honor in Lima on July 28, 1995; at a hospital in Lima with his children on April 30, 2024; appearing in court in Lima for trial on graft and corruption on November 7, 2013; and addressing a campaign rally on May 17 2000 in Cajamarca. (AFP photos)
LIMA — Former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori, who steered economic growth during the 1990s but was later jailed for human rights abuses stemming from a bloody war against Maoist rebels, died on Wednesday. He was aged 86.
Close colleagues visited him earlier in the day, reporting that he was in a critical condition.
“After a long battle with cancer, our father… has just departed to meet the Lord,” his daughter Keiko Fujimori wrote in a message on X, also signed by the former leader’s other children.
Fujimori, the son of Japanese immigrants, was the little-known chancellor of a farming university when elected to office in 1990. He quickly established himself as a cunning politician whose hands-on style produced results even as he angered critics for concentrating power.
He slayed hyperinflation that had thrown millions of Peruvians out of work, privatized dozens of state-run companies, and slashed trade tariffs, setting the foundations for Peru to become, for a while, one of Latin America’s most stable economies.
Under his watch, the feared leader of the Maoist Shining Path, Abimael Guzman, was captured — dealing a crucial blow to a movement that in the 1980s seemed close to toppling the Peruvian state. Guzman died in prison in September 2021.
But many Peruvians saw Fujimori as an autocrat after he used military tanks to shut down Congress in 1992, redrafting the constitution to his liking to push free-market reforms and tough anti-terrorism laws.
A slew of corruption scandals during his 10-year administration also turned public opinion against him.
Shortly after he won a third election in 2000 — amending the constitution to run — videos emerged of his top adviser and spy chief Vladimiro Montesinos doling out cash to bribe politicians. Fujimori fled to exile in Japan.
He resigned via fax from Tokyo and then unsuccessfully campaigned for a Japanese senatorial seat.
Montesinos was later captured in Venezuela and jailed, convicted by the hundreds of videos he recorded of himself handing out cash bribes to politicians and business and media executives.
The cases against Fujimori piled up — including accusations that he had ordered the use of death squads in his battle against Shining Path militants.
Fujimori was safe in Japan — he was a dual citizen and Japan does not extradite its citizens. So many were shocked when in 2005 he decided to head back to Peru, apparently in hopes of forgiveness and a return to politics.
Instead, he was detained during a layover in Chile, extradited to Peru in 2007, and in 2009 he was convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison.
’FUJI-SHOCK’
Once jailed, Fujimori’s public appearances were limited to hospital visits where he often appeared disheveled and unwell.
While detractors dismissed his health complaints as a ploy to get out of prison, then-president Pedro Pablo Kuczynski briefly pardoned Fujimori in 2017.
Months later Kuczynski was impeached and the pardon overturned by Peru’s top constitutional court, sending Fujimori back to the special prison that held him and no other inmates.
The court restored the pardon in December 2023, releasing the ailing Fujimori, who had suffered from stomach ulcers, hypertension and tongue cancer. In May 2024, Fujimori announced he had been diagnosed with a malignant tumor.
Fujimori’s legacy has been most passionately defended by his daughter Keiko, who has been close to clinching the presidency herself three times on a platform that has included pardoning her father and defending his constitution.
The late Fujimori was born in Lima on Peruvian Independence Day, July 28, 1938.
A mathematician and agricultural engineer, Fujimori was a political nobody when he decided to run for the presidency, driving a tractor to his campaign rallies. He surprised the world by defeating renowned writer Mario Vargas Llosa in the 1990 election, with heavy support from the left.
He touted himself as an alternative to the country’s white elite and gained crucial support from Peru’s large Indigenous and mixed race populations.
As Peru battled what was among the world’s worst hyperinflation, Fujimori promised not to carry out drastic measures to tame it.
But on his second week in office he suddenly lifted the subsidies that kept food essentials affordable, in what became known as the ‘Fuji-shock.’
“May God help us,” Fujimori’s finance minister said on TV after announcing the measure. Inflation worsened in the short-term but the bet paid off, eventually stabilizing the economy after over a decade of crisis.
Even as support for him started to wane, Fujimori pulled off audacious stunts in his second term.
In 1997, he devised a plan to dig tunnels under the Japanese ambassador’s residence in Lima to end a four-month hostage crisis after another insurgency, the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement, took 500 people captive for 126 days.
In a surprise attack, Fujimori sent in more than 100 commandos in a raid that killed all 14 insurgents.
Only two commandos and one of the remaining 72 hostages died. Television footage showed Fujimori calmly stepping over the corpses of the insurgents after the raid.
Fujimori was married twice. A public falling-out with his first wife Susana Higuchi while he was president led him to name daughter Keiko as the first lady. The couple had three other children, including Kenjo Fujimori, also a politician.
HANOI — As of Thursday morning, Typhoon Yagi and the consequent landslides and floods had left 197 dead and 128 missing in Vietnam, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development announced.
Yagi, the most powerful typhoon to hit Asia this year, made landfall on the northern coast of Vietnam on Saturday and moved westwards, hitting the capital Hanoi with gales and heavy rain.
The storm also hit other provinces up the Red River, the area’s largest, collapsing a bridge on Monday.
LIMA — A prison worker was killed and another injured early Wednesday in an armed assault outside a prison in southern Peru’s Ica region, according to the National Penitentiary Institute (Inpe).
“Our Institution expresses its condolences to the family of the deceased and will provide all necessary support to the workers affected by this incident,” the agency said on X, formerly Twitter.
The victims of the assault outside the prison in the city of Chincha were identified as Fanny Flor Hernandez Correa, who died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, and Manuel Ricardo Cervantes Cruz, who was injured and “is out of danger.”
The assault took place around 7:30 a.m. local time (1230 GMT) when suspects riding a motorcycle ambushed the workers, as they were arriving by car at a security checkpoint several meters from the prison entrance, the state-run news agency Andina reported.
Hernandez Correa had previously received death threats inside the prison, said the report.
KUALA LUMPUR — Bekas pembantu penyelidik Perdana Menteri, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, Muhammed Yusoff Rawther, didakwa di Mahkamah Majistret hari ini atas pertuduhan mengedar 305 gram ganja minggu lalu.
Yusoff, 31, didakwa mengedar ganja kira-kira jam 10.15 pagi di hadapan tempat letak kereta surau Ibu Pejabat Polis Kontinjen Kuala Lumpur pada 6 September lalu.
Pertuduhan dibuat mengikut Seksyen 39B(1)(a) Akta Dadah Berbahaya yang boleh dihukum di bawah Seksyen 39(B(2) membawa hukuman penjara seumur hidup dan sebat tidak kurang daripada 12 sebatan.
Dia mengangguk dan memahami pertuduhan dibacakan di hadapan Majistret M S Arunjothy.
Bagaimanapun, tiada pengakuan direkodkan daripada Yusoff kerana kes dadah di bawah bidang kuasa Mahkamah Tinggi.
Timbalan Pendakwa Raya Mohd Sabri Othman meminta mahkamah menetapkan tarikh sebutan semula sementara menunggu keputusan bahan yang telah dihantar ke Jabatan Kimia untuk dianalisis.
Mahkamah menetapkan 12 November untuk sebutan semula kes.
Yusoff diwakili peguam Muhammad Rafique Rashid Ali.
Rafique akan mengadakan sidang media berhubung perkara itu lewat hari ini.
Terdahulu, Yusoff tiba di kompleks mahkamah di bawah kawalan ketat polis hari ini.
Semalam, ketua polis bandar raya Datuk Rusdi Mohd Isa mengesahkan menerima laporan berhubung penahanan seorang lelaki di Bukit Kiara.
Beliau dilaporkan berkata lelaki itu ditahan selepas polis menemui dua pistol tiruan dan blok mampat yang disyaki ganja di dalam kenderaannya.
Kes disiasat mengikut Seksyen 36 Akta Senjata 1960 kerana memiliki dan mengimport senjata tiruan dan Seksyen 39B Akta Dadah Berbahaya 1952.
Dilaporkan Yusoff ditahan Jumaat lalu selepas polis didakwa menemui dua pistol dan 305g ganja di dalam kereta yang dinaikinya.
Rafique berkata Yusoff ditahan sekitar jam 9.30 pagi pada hari sama.
LIMA — At least three people died and 22 were injured when an interprovincial bus veered off the road and capsized on a highway in northern Peru’s Piura region early Wednesday morning, local media reported.
According to the Andina news agency, the accident occurred around 3:00 a.m. local time when the “El Dorado” company’s bus left the road in the Los Organos district.
The injured were transferred to clinics and hospitals in Piura and the neighboring region of Tumbes, the final destination of the trip, to receive medical care.
The 46-year-old driver was arrested by the police on suspicion of crimes against life, body and health, although the causes of the accident are under investigation.
LA PAZ — At least six people died and seven others were injured when a cargo truck going the wrong way collided head-on with a public transit minibus in western Bolivia on Wednesday, according to local authorities.
The accident occurred along a highway connecting the departments of La Paz and Oruro, 35 km from the city of La Paz, the departmental chief of police in La Paz, Edgar Cortez, told local media.
“Unfortunately, this accident has left six people dead, including minors, and several injured who were taken to nearby medical centers,” said Cortez.
The minibus, which was headed to the city of La Paz, was carrying 13 people when the head-on collision occurred. The front of the bus was smashed and the vehicle ran off the road.
According to initial investigation, the driver of the truck fled and authorities are trying to locate him.
The police chief said the accident once again puts the focus on road safety in Bolivia, where road infrastructure and reckless driving lead to a significant number of deaths each year.
