KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia: A Malaysian court sentenced a former flight attendant to 18 years in prison Thursday for scalding her Indonesian housemaid with hot water and an iron in one of the country's worst cases of domestic worker abuse.
Sessions Court Judge Akhtar Tahir found Yim Pek Ha guilty of using dangerous weapons to inflict injury on Nirmala Bonat at her Kuala Lumpur condominium on three separate occasions in early 2004.
Akhtar ordered Yim to start serving the sentence immediately.
Bonat said she was beaten and burned for mistakes she made during her five months in Yim's home. She said that on one occasion her employer took a hot iron and pressed it against her breasts after complaining that clothes had not been properly ironed.
The case sparked national outrage that focused attention on the plight of Indonesian migrant domestic workers after Malaysian newspapers published photographs in 2004 of a then 19-year-old Bonat showing burns and bruises over much of her body.
Akhtar rejected claims by defense lawyers that the injuries were self-inflicted and said he wanted to impose a "deterrent sentence" to show that "sadistic behavior ... cannot be tolerated in a civil society."
Yim, 40, was charged on three counts of causing injury to Bonat. She had faced prison sentences of up to 20 years on each count.
Yim sobbed uncontrollably and hugged her family after the judge read his verdict.
Yim's lawyer, Jagjit Singh, said they would appeal the verdict. He called the sentence "excessive" because there was "no loss of life, no disfigurement, no scars" in the case.
Bonat did not attend the hearing because she had returned to her hometown in Indonesia's East Nusa Tenggara province.
Shanti Utami Retnaningsih, an Indonesian Embassy official, said the verdict should send a "very strong message to other employers not to abuse their maids."
Indonesian officials and human rights groups have urged Malaysia's government to strengthen laws to protect some 300,000 Indonesian domestic workers.
Indonesian diplomats say at least 1,500 maids seek help at their offices across Malaysia each year. Most complain of unpaid wages, but some also claim they were physically abused.
