Woman who abused low-IQ family friend placed on bail pending appeal
[UPDATE on Thursday, 1 April 2021: Haslinda has dropped her appeal against sentence. She will start serving her sentence on 12 April.]
SINGAPORE — A woman sentenced to eight-and-a-half years' jail for abusing a low-IQ family friend to a near-death state was placed on bail pending appeal on Monday (1 March).
Haslinda Ismail, 34, had filed an appeal against her sentence on 10 February, a week after she was given the jail term by District Judge Toh Yung Cheong.
Her lawyer Ashwin Ganapathy on Monday asked the court to place his client on bail until the appeal was concluded. He sought for her bail conditions to remain the same, and the amount at $30,000. He added that Haslinda has surrendered her travel documents and been placed on an e-tagging regime.
Haslinda had earlier pleaded guilty to three charges: causing hurt with a deadly weapon, causing hurt with a heated substance, and causing grievous hurt with a deadly weapon.
Together with her family, Haslinda brutally abused the 30-year-old victim – enslaving her with a metal bicycle chain; and using pliers to twist her toes, a hammer to knock out her teeth, a baseball bat to hit her head; and splashing boiling water on her.
When the victim was sent to hospital via ambulance in a near-death state on 16 January 2018, she required eight hours of resuscitation. The burn injuries on her body were so severe that she had to be transferred to the Singapore General Hospital’s Burns Centre the same day.
Haslinda’s sister Hasniza Ismail, 40, was jailed for three years while two of their brothers were convicted of crimes relating to the case.
Iskandar Ismail, 32, pleaded guilty to causing hurt and lying to the police. He was jailed for eight months. Iski Ismail, 30, pleaded guilty to perverting the course of justice and lying to the police. He was jailed for two months and four weeks.
Haslinda's husband, Hany Aboubakr Abdelkarim Abdelfattah, was sentenced to three weeks’ jail after he pleaded guilty to one count of voluntarily causing hurt by slapping the victim.
The case involving the siblings’ mother, Hasmah Sulong, is pending before the High Court.
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