MELBOURNE, Sept 4 — A Malaysian man has been sentenced to six years in prison in Australia after being convicted of enslaving and assaulting an Indonesian woman.

Free Malaysia Today, citing ABC News, reported that Melbourne County Court Judge Michael Cahill sentenced Chong Chee Kit, 47, after a jury found him guilty of forcing the woman into domestic servitude and subjecting her to repeated abuse.

“You treated her as a slave, that is, you used her like property you owned,” Cahill said, describing Chong’s conduct as callous and cruel.

The judge said Chong subjected the woman to physical abuse over minor mistakes, including kicking her in the face and smashing her head against a wall.

The court heard that Chong restricted her access to food and medical treatment, controlled where she went and prevented her from getting adequate sleep.

Chong will be eligible for parole in 2030 and is expected to be deported to Malaysia after serving his sentence.

A jury in May found Chong guilty of keeping the woman, who was in her 60s, in slavery between February and October 2022.

His wife, Angie Liaw, was acquitted of charges that she had helped or encouraged Chong to keep the woman in slavery.

The couple had been charged together in 2023.

The court heard Chong met the woman at a church in Malaysia in 2015 and developed what was described as a “mother-son” relationship with her.

She moved to Australia in 2017 to live with the couple, but they later returned to Malaysia without informing her, leaving her without accommodation for four years.

In 2021, they told her they had returned to Melbourne and offered to employ her for a month.

She moved into their home in early 2022 after Liaw gave birth to her second child, initially planning to stay for only a month.

The court heard Chong also made the woman borrow money from relatives to cover house rent and hospital expenses related to the birth.

She escaped from the home in October 2022 and was missing for several days before police found her and took her to hospital, where the circumstances surrounding her treatment came to light.

Slavery is a federal offence in Australia punishable by up to 25 years in prison.

The woman died of natural causes in 2024.