Woman Retracts Rape Claims Against Paul Yong

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The lawyer for an Indonesian domestic worker has testified that she had withdrawn her rape allegations against former Perak executive councillor Paul Yong.
ADSPathu Rahman told the Ipoh High Court today that she made the retraction through a statutory declaration affirmed in Indonesia.
Yong's lawyer Salim Bashir confirmed that Pathu made the testimony during the hearing of an application for additional evidence to quash his conviction of raping his former domestic worker.
"The lawyer (Pathu) met her on May 20 last year," Salim said about Pathu's testimony, adding that the Indonesian-based lawyer said the woman later affirmed the statutory declaration.
Yong’s appeal
Salim explained that the Ipoh High Court judge would later brief the Federal Court about this testimony on March 7, which is 10 days before the apex court is set to hear Yong's appeal to nullify his guilty verdict and jail sentence.
On Nov 12 last year, the Federal Court granted Yong's application to introduce additional evidence in his appeal against his conviction.
The three-judge panel led by Harmindar Singh Dhaliwal allowed five documents to be admitted as additional evidence, describing them as significant because they appear to indicate that the victim may have provided false testimony during Yong's trial.
On March 1 last year, the Court of Appeal, in a split decision, dismissed Yong's appeal and upheld his conviction for raping his 23-year-old Indonesian maid in a room at his house in Ipoh between 8.15pm and 9.15pm on July 7, 2019.
However, the appellate court’s three-judge panel reduced Yong’s prison sentence from 13 years to eight, with two strokes of the cane.
Yong subsequently appealed the decision to the Federal Court.
The appellate court granted a stay of execution pending the outcome of the appeal. Yong was released on RM30,000 bail with one surety and ordered to surrender his passport to the court. - Mkini

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