Singapore serial rapist gets 37.5 years prison, 24 strokes

A serial rapist who was convicted of raping five women, sexually assaulting three and outraging the modesty of 14 others was sentenced on Tuesday to 37 and a half years in prison and the maximum 24 strokes of the cane.
 
Local media reported that the man, 44-year-old Azuar Ahamad, spiked his victims' drinks with sleeping pills before sexually attacking them. His offences were committed between December 2008 and August 2009, and his victims were women aged between 18 and 41.
 
His modus operandi: a dating app on Facebook called SpeedDate. Azuar, who previously worked as a logistics executive, would strike up conversations with the women one by one and meet them at nightspots, where he would dissolve sleeping pills into their drinks. After they passed out, he would bring his victims to hotel rooms, violate them and then send them home.
 
Reports say none of the women remembered being sexually assaulted; neither were they aware that Azuar was attacking them when he did — the only evidence of the attacks were videos of some of them recorded by Azuar on his two mobile phones.
 
In 2012, he reportedly pleaded guilty to three rapes and a sexual assault, with the rest being taken into consideration, but he insisted he did not drug his victims until it emerged that he purchased hundreds of sleeping pills from doctors.
 
Because his prison sentence will be backdated to the day he was first remanded, Azuar, who previously worked as a logistics executive, will stay in jail until he is 65.