KUCHING: A former soldier was sentenced to 11 years in prison and two strokes of the cane by the Sessions Court here today after being found guilty of raping a teenage girl until she became pregnant and gave birth to their child.

Judge Maris Agan sentenced Rod Rogers Guntor, 26, from Kampung Grogo, after the defence failed to raise reasonable doubt at the end of the prosecution’s case today (21 September).

According to the first charge sheet, he was accused of raping a 15-year-old victim in a room in Kampung Grogo around 2 am to 4 am on 6 December 2019.

Meanwhile, for the second charge he committed the cursed act against the same victim at a hotel in Bau on 29 December 2019.

For both charges, he was charged according to Section 376(2) (d) of the Penal Code which carries a prison sentence of up to 20 years and caning.

Maris Agan sentenced the accused to 11 years in prison and one caning each for each charge.

However, the court ruled that the accused will serve a concurrent prison sentence effective today.

According to the facts of the case, a police report was made by a doctor who found that the victim, who was still under the age of 15, was 31 weeks pregnant.

After the victim gave birth to her child last year, a Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA) Test was conducted and a report from the Malaysian Chemist Department confirmed that the victim and the accused are the parents of the baby.

Before the accused was sentenced, defence counsel Jonathan Jalin, who represented the accused, appealed to the court for his client’s sentence to be reduced because he has to support his family, namely his wife and their three children, because he was discharged from his military service.

However, deputy public prosecutor Md Syafique Md Hilmie requested that the court impose severe punishment on the accused for tarnishing the name of the government as a public servant who knew better that such an offence should not be committed but still did so.

Md Syafique insisted that it was necessary to take into account the victim’s trauma apart from the accused not caring about his child who was born to the victim.

It is understood that the victim and the accused do not have any relationship and at the time of the incident they had only known each other through smartphones for a day.