Re-open teenage bride's rape case, AG says

Attorney General Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail has ordered the police to re-look into the 13-year-old Kedah bride rape case, due to amounting public interest.

The teenager, who had married and then divorced one of the alleged rapist, Mohd Fahmi Mohamed Alias, had lodged a report at the Kulim police station on July 15, last year, saying Fahmi and his two friends had raped her four months before her marriage took place.

At a press conference in Putrajaya on Monday, Abdul Ghani said following the police report, two of the three suspects were arrested, where one of them was charged in court and had pleaded guilty.

He was then sentenced to a year at a reform school in Paya Terubong.

Abdul Ghani said the second suspect arrested was Mohd Fahmi, then 19, but the deputy public prosecutor at that time withdrew the case for certain reasons.

The Malaysian Insider reported that Abdul Ghani had said that he held a meeting with the police in the morning and had given instructions, including additional statements.

The police have now a week to look for the additional information that Abdul Ghani wanted.

They have also been briefed that any withdrawal of rape cases in future must first be referred to the headquarters.

The bride’s father, Saad Mustafa, 44, in an exclusive interview with an English daily last week, said he had to marry his daughter off because of the rape and that Fahmi’s parents had begged him for days to drop the rape charge.

The couple had married on Nov 17 last year, after obtaining the permission from the Kulim Syariah Court as the bride was under-aged.

However, he said his daughter told him in October this year that she could no longer tolerate the abuse by her in-laws and sought for divorce.

Saad claimed, Mohd Fahmi’s family never liked his daughter from the beginning and she was often physically abused and not given food.