A 36-year-old Malaysian man has been charged with more than 600 sex assaults on Thursday against his daughter, the officials said. If found guilty, the suspect might have to face a jail term of over 12,000 years. The suspect cannot be named to protect the identity of the victim.
The court officials took two days to read out all 626 charges against the divorcee and finished on Thursday afternoon. The authorities included 599 charges of sodomy against the 15-year-old girl, as well as counts of incest, rape and other sex crimes.
When the charges were read in court, the bespectacled suspect, who was dressed in a grey T-shirt and blue trousers, was calm. He pleaded not guilty and the case will now proceed to trial.
"He faces a prison sentence of over 12,000 years," Aimi Syazwani, a deputy public prosecutor, told AFP at a newly-established special court for sex crimes against children in the administrative capital Putrajaya.
The man can be punished with a maximum jail term of 20 years, as well as caning for each charge of sodomy. The Malaysian carries a rape charge that carries a maximum sentence of 20 years, and 30 other charges of sexual assault, each punishable by up to 20 years in jail.
The man was denied for bail by Judge Yong Zarida Sazali as the prosecutors warned him that there was a danger of him fleeing or intimidating witnesses.
On July 26, the man was arrested after the girl's mother lodged a police report. The offences were allegedly committed between January and July this year, when the daughter was living with her father.
The special court for sexual crimes against children was launched in June.
