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Jail, caning for 2 who raped victim after getting her drunk

SINGAPORE – After plying their victim with hard liquor at a birthday party held in a hotel, the two young men decided to rape her, one after another.

SINGAPORE – After plying their victim with hard liquor at a birthday party held in a hotel, the two young men decided to rape her, one after another.

Muhammad Fadly Abdull Wahab was sentenced to 13 years jail and eight strokes of the cane, while his accomplice Muhammad Hazly Mohamad Halimi was jailed for 11 years and given six strokes of the cane.

On Jan 25, 2014, Fadly, who is now 20, invited the victim – an acquaintance he met at a club months earlier – to a friend’s party at Duxton Hotel that night. The victim, who cannot be named due to a gag order, did not know anyone else at the party, and agreed to go on the condition that her male friend could join too.

Around 10:40pm, Fadly told Hazly over Whatsapp that he wanted to get the victim drunk. Hazly, currently 23, replied: “If you want to (get her) drunk buy one more ah.”

The victim and her friend arrived around midnight on Jan 26. After a round of introductions to the rest of the partygoers, Fadly started to pour drinks for her. She downed six glasses of hard liquor on an empty stomach and was reluctant to drink a seventh glass, because she felt tipsy.

Fadly, however, reassured her that he would look after her ‘if anything were to happen”. After drinking the seventh glass, she started vomiting and could barely stand straight.

Around 1:15am, the rest of the partygoers proceeded to Zouk, leaving Fadly and Hazly to care for the victim. They brought her to the bathroom to clean up the vomit, and later moved her to the bed.

She was unconscious by then, and they decided to take a photograph of her in a semi-dressed state. The photograph – which Fadly later sent to a common friend he had with the victim – also showed the two men posing and smiling. Fadly also sent the friend the following message: “U miss the fun man!”

Later, the victim vomited again, and they brought her to the bathroom once more. Hazly stayed there to wash his shirt, which had vomit on it, while Fadly brought her back to the bed.

At this point, Fadly proceeded to rape her as she lay on the bed with her eyes closed. After finishing, he urged his friend to “go la, go la”. Hazly then raped her.

During the night, Fadly deleted his contact details from her handphone, and blocked her on social media platforms. After leaving the hotel the next day, the victim wanted to contact Fadly to ask about what had happened, but found that his contact details were missing.

She then asked their common friend to find out the truth. During a text message conversation, Fadly told this friend that he would have done the same, if he had been at the party as well. “U will… because we are men,” Fadly said.

In a statement tendered to the court, the victim, now 21, said that she could only remember “bits and pieces” of what had happened.

“I was feeling stupid and angry with myself for putting myself in such a situation… when I reached home, I took a shower and noticed there was blood when I urinated,” she said, adding that she washed herself repeatedly because she felt “unclean”.

Fadly’s lawyer Ismail Hamid pointed out that the victim willingly drank the alcohol that night.

“At no point did our client force or coerce her to drink. She’s not a naïve country bumpkin, she had the liberty to stop drinking. When she started vomiting, our client stopped pouring her drinks,” he said.

However, Deputy Public Prosecutor Charlene Tay Chia argued that Fadly had taken “concerted steps” to intoxicate the victim. “He offered her false reassurance that he would take care of her, if she got drunk,” she said, adding that Fadly had shown a complete lack of remorse or regard for the victim’s dignity by encouraging his friend to rape her.

The semi-nude photograph which Fadly had circulated was clearly meant as a bragging right, and demonstrated “flippant” degradation of his victim, said the DPP Chia.

Hazly’s lawyer Mohamed Muzammil Mohamed said that his client was extremely remorseful. But he also maintained that the victim had said, “I love you, I love you, some more, some more,” to Hazly during the rape.

DPP Sharmila Sripathy-Shanaz fired back that the victim had been unconscious throughout the incident.

“This case calls for an exemplary sentence – one that pierces false stereotype and wrong assumptions about rapes and sexual assaults of intoxicated victims,” she said.

Another three partygoers, who returned to the hotel room around 3:45am that night, have been charged in relation to this case. Their trial opens next week.

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