5 longest prison sentences given out by Malaysian courts

What’s the longest you can go to prison for in Malaysia?

For most cases, that would be life imprisonment, which actually has either one of two meanings: you finish the remainder of your natural life in prison (only for certain offences), or you get 30 years, which is the default setting.

30 years is a long time to be locked up, but it’s actually possible for someone to get a prison sentence way, way longer than that. This is especially true if they have multiple sentences, and it depends on how your sentence are passed out: concurrently, or consecutively. To explain it simply, let’s say you robbed someone three times. Say each robbery gets you 10 years in prison.

• If your sentences are concurrent, you can do all three at the same time, so you’ll only be in prison for 10 years.
• If your sentences are consecutive, you have to do one after the other, so you’ll be spending 30 years in prison.

With that in mind, you might be wondering: how long can a judge put me in prison then? Well, today, we’ll be looking at some extreme examples to answer that, starting with…

1. Selangor man got 1,050 years in prison for incest

In January last year, an unemployed man in Selangor was found guilty of raping his 12-year old stepdaughter 105 times over a period of two years. For each instance, he was charged for incest under Section 376B of the Penal Code, which carries a penalty of whipping and prison for no less than 10 years, and no more than 30 years.

Judge M Kunasundary ordered for the man to serve the minimum term in jail (10 years) for each charge, consecutively. This totals up to 1,050 years in jail, plus 24 strokes of the rattan.

“I hope you will repent while in prison. You should not have committed a violent act and although the punishment is minimum, the court feels this is sufficient by taking into account the number of charges against you,” – Judge M Kunasundary, as quoted by Channel News Asia.

While the man, which was unnamed and unrepresented, did not appeal the sentence when it was handed out, he later appealed and got the 1,050 year sentence set aside by the High Court. Judge Azmi found the earlier sentence to be unlikely to be served, so the court reviewed it to 14 consecutive years for each year the offences were committed in (2018, 2019, and 2020) and came up with a lighter (but still long) sentence of 42 years.

2. Another Selangor man faced a 12,000 year prison sentence

Back in 2017, it was reported that a 36-year old divorced Malaysian man was charged with more than 600 counts for sexual crimes against his eldest daughter, with 599 of those charges being for sodomy. The reading of his charges revealed that he allegedly committed carnal intercourse on the girl three times daily for seven months (between Jan and July 2017), until the mother found out about the situation and lodged a police report.

The case was highly unusual and received quite a bit of international coverage. With sodomy carrying a maximum jail term of 20 years (plus caning), and rape and sexual assault having the same sentence, the man was said to be potentially facing over 12,000 years in prison.

“He faces a prison sentence of over 12,000 years,” – Aimi Syazwani, a deputy public prosecutor, as quoted by the Straits Times.

As for the outcome, the man ended up only having to spend only 48 years in jail: 28 years for committing incest, physical sexual assault without intercouse, and abusing, neglecting, and sexually abusing the girl; and 20 years for sodomising the victim, to be served consecutively.

3. A farmer in Sarawak got 115 years for incest

Also in 2017, a 49-year old farmer in Sarawak faced the music when his abuse of his 15-year old daughter came to light. The farmer had apparently raped his daughter seven times since she was 12, and he faced 5 counts of incest, as well as one count of molestation (Section 354 of the Penal Code).

For the incest charges, he was sentenced to 22 years in prison and 4 lashes for each count, whereas the rape charge got him 5 years, bringing the total to 115 years in prison and 20 lashes. However, due to the sentence being concurrent, he would only need to be in prison for 22 years.

The prosecution later challenged that decision, and the sentence was changed to be consecutive, meaning that he’d have to be in prison for 115 years. The latest we’ve heard is that the sentence was successfully appealed yet again in 2020, with the length reduced to 45 years. This decision was made on account of the accused’s old age.

“Based on percentages and statistics, the average lifespan of men in this country is around 70 years. The accused is now 52 years old and may not live long enough to undergo the sentence,” – lawyer representing the accused, translated from Utusan Borneo.

Interestingly, in the same year a 53-year old fisherman in Pahang also got sentenced to 115 years in prison, also for incest and rape. But these two seem to be separate cases.

4. Mother in Johor sentenced to 150 years in jail for exploiting daughters

In 2013, a single mother in Kulai, Johor, made headlines for forcing her two daughters (aged 10 and 13) to have sex with two Bangladeshi man while she watched in a budget hotel in JB for five days. The mother reported received RM50 for each of the girls, and paid them between RM1 and RM20 after each session.

She was arrested after her eldest daughter reported that she was selling them to foreign men through WhatsApp after school, and she was later charged with 10 counts of exploiting her two daughters into prostitution under Section 31(1)(b) of the Child Act, read together with Section 16(1) of the Sexual Offences Against Children Act 2017.

“It is clear the two girls are traumatised by the incident. We want a sentence that not only serves as a lesson to the accused, but also the whole community as well as all parents.” – Suhaila Shafi’uddin, deputy public prosecutor, as quoted by The Independent.

The judge sentenced her to 15 years of jail for each of the 10 charges, leading to a total of 150 years. However, she will only be serving 75 years in jail as some of the sentences are to be run concurrently.

5. Hostel warden in Perlis got 228 years for sodomizing tahfiz students

Unlike the other cases here, the name of the accused for this one was revealed by the media: 29-year old Nawawi Anuar. In 2019, he made headlines after he was found guilty of sodomizing two students and molesting another three at a tahfiz school in Kangar, as reported by a staff.

He was charged with 25 counts of sodomy and gross indecency under Sections 377B and 377C of the Penal Code, Sections 15 (e) and Section 16 (1) of the Sex Offences Against Children Act 2017, and 1 count under Section 5 (2) of the Film Censorship Act for having pornographic videos on his phone, which he allegedly showed to one of the victims. Each count of the sexual crime charges brought him a sentence of between 7 and 15 years in prison, plus one year for the pornography thing, which brings him to a grand total of 228 years in prison (plus 42 strokes of the cane).

Those 228 years are initially to be served consecutively. However, in February 2020, the accused filed an appeal against the sentence, and last year the High Court of Kangar agreed to let some of the sentences be concurrent, reducing the number of years he’d have to be in prison to 50 years. Also, the 42 strokes he was supposed to get also got reduced to 20.

Wah… are all these long long sentences necessary?

While perhaps not many people would argue that these crimes are heinous and deserve harsh punishments, over the years lawyers have questioned some absurdly long prison sentences, especially since we have life imprisonment in the system.

In the case of a Tuan Mat Lonik who was sentenced to 75 years of prison for rape, lawyer Muhammad Rafique Rahid Ali had said that the accused was already 48 when sentenced, so he would be 123 when released. Such judgments, he said, might bring the soundness of the judiciary into question.

“Knowing fully well that he will never serve the full term is not only bizarre but strains the intelligence of the court. Any illogical sentence may attract unnecessary scrutiny and negative comments from the public on how we awkwardly conduct ourselves,” – Muhammad Rafique Rahid Ali, to FMT.

So is it a harmless gesture that strikes fear into would-be offenders, or a pointless gesture that will bring the judiciary into scrutiny? We’ll let you be the judge.