KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 21 — The eldest son of a Malaysian couple charged with hitting their children in Sweden said he would not have reported the alleged abuse if he had known it would lead to their prosecution.

In a video testimony shown at the Solna district court in Sweden yesterday, the boy told a policewoman that he did not know hitting children was unlawful there.

“If I know this is the result, surely I would not have told the school. Are my parents going to be released? ...We are sad because we have not seen them for a long time,” he was reported saying by local daily Berita Harian.

“It’s been a long time. Four weeks already and it’s strange not to see them for so long. I wish my parents would be at my home and we will be fine together,” the 12-year-old son of Shalwati Norshal and Azizul Raheem Awaluddi was quoted saying in the early January video by Astro Awani.

Both Astro Awani and local daily The Star reported that the mother Shalwati cried at this point of the testimony.

The couple’s four children, who were brought back to Malaysia last month, are now with their aunt in Kelantan.

In the same recording, the child alleged that an incident in which his mother pulled his ear had emotionally “scarred” him “for life”, The Star reported.

According to Astro Awani, he also claimed that the mother had struck him with a belt for complaining while cleaning the bathroom.

“It felt like blood was coming out of my legs. It also felt like hot water pouring down leg,” he said

The 10-day trial, which is set to run until March 10, resumes next Monday.

Secondary school teacher Shalwati and Azizul, who is a Tourism Malaysia officer based in Stockholm, are charged with multiple counts of gross violation of their children’s integrity and assault.

Shalwati and Azizul are accused of hitting their four children - aged between seven and 14 years - at their home in Stockholm between September 15, 2010, and December 17, 2013.

They face between six months and six years’ jail for each charge.

The couple was detained on December 18 last year after being accused of beating their children for not praying.

Sweden, in 1979, was the first country in the world to outlaw corporal punishment.