KUALA LUMPUR, March 28 — A Swedish court has sentenced a Malaysian couple for hitting their children.
Shalwati Norshal, the mother of the four children, was sentenced to 14 months’ jail, while her husband and the father of the children, Azizul Raheem Awalluddin, was given a 10-month prison sentence, The Star Online reported.
The couple had been charged with beating their four children — aged between seven and 14 years — at their home in Stockholm between September 15, 2010, and December 17, 2013.
Azizul, who is a Tourism Malaysia director, and his wife were also ordered to pay damages to their children.
The Star Online reported today that the Solna District Court in Stockholm found Shalwati, who is a secondary school teacher, guilty of committing gross violation of the integrity of the couple’s two older children.
She was also found guilty of assaulting their two younger sons.
Azizul was convicted of committing gross violation of the integrity of their eldest son and of assaulting their daughter and second son.
He was acquitted of charges involving his youngest son.
In the high-profile Swedish trial last month, the children said in their pre-recorded video testimony that their mother had hit them for several years, even with items like a piece of wood, a coat hanger, a belt, canes and a carpet cleaner.
One of the children testified that Shalwati had beaten him over 1,000 times last year, while another said that his mother had hit him so often that the beatings no longer hurt.
Azizul, on the other hand, was accused of hitting one of his children over 100 times last year, besides forcing one of them to sit in a corner for eight hours without food.
Shalwati and Azizul were detained on December 18 last year after being accused of hitting their children for not praying.
The children are currently living with their aunt in Kelantan.
Sweden, in 1979, was the first country in the world to outlaw corporal punishment.
