Maid gets life for killing boss
Maid gets life for killing boss
Agencies, Singapore/Jakarta
A 24-year-old Indonesian maid, set to hang in Singapore on
charges of stabbing dead her employer, won a reprieve on Friday
when a court reduced her sentence to life in prison because she
had been abused.
Sundarti Suprianto was charged with stabbing and burning Angie
Ng, 33, and her 3-year-old daughter Crystal Poh, in May 2002, and
then covering up the murders by setting fire to the crime scene
-- her employer's office.
The Singapore High Court found Sundarti guilty on the lesser
charge of culpable homicide instead of the original charge of
murder, which carries a mandatory death sentence by hanging under
Singapore's tough laws.
Sundarti's lawyers said she was provoked after suffering abuse
and deserved compassion because she saved Ng's 2-year-old son,
Leon Poh, from the fire.
"The defense of grave and sudden provocation succeeded," Johan
Ismail, who represented Sundarti, was quoted by Reuters as
saying. "She saved the young child, so the feeling was she was
not a cold-blooded murderer."
Sundarti had been employed for only about two weeks.
While Justice MPH Rubin found Sundarti guilty of committing
the crimes, he convicted her on the lesser charge of culpable
homicide after taking into account the "ill-treatment" Ng had
inflicted on her.
"This is an exceptionally tragic case. It is tragic and sad
both for the deceased and the accused," Rubin said, as quoted by
AFP, before sentencing her to life in jail.
Rubin rejected the prosecution's argument that Sundarti was a
"cold-blooded killer" who carried out a "mindless killing".
"Despite all the lies uttered by the accused to extricate
herself from her guilt, there was cogent evidence to conclude
that the deceased subjected her to some measure of ill-
treatment," Rubin said.
"In my view, the cord of reason suddenly snapped when the
accused could no longer control her feelings of despair."
Rubin referred to Ng depriving Sundarti of food, forcing the
Indonesian woman to accept biscuits from other people out of
pity, as one form of ill-treatment.
Indonesian Ambassador to Singapore Mohamad Slamet Hidayat said
he respected the sentence.
"In our view, the court has been fair in proceeding the case,
and thus, we respect the outcome," he told The Jakarta Post.
The ambassador hopes Sundarti's case will help other domestic
workers from Indonesia prepare themselves mentally and physically
before deciding to work in Singapore.
Often regarded as an inexhaustible underclass who are cheap
and compliant, Singapore's 140,000 foreign domestic workers make
the affluent Southeast Asian city-state one of the world's top
employers of maids.
About one in seven families hire live-in maids, mostly drawn
from the Philippines, Indonesia and Sri Lanka.
After high-profile reports of maid abuse, prospective
employers must now attend a seminar on how to treat staff
properly and also pass a test.
Domestic workers are one of the few groups of people in
tightly controlled Singapore that are not protected by the
Employment Act that sets basic work rights.
However, the Singapore government announced in July it would
change some rules in an effort to end the tension between
domestic workers and their employers, such as raising the minimum
age of foreign employees from 18 to 23. Related Story on Page 5