GEORGE TOWN, Aug 26 — Indonesia Christian Halimah and her employer should sue Penang’s Islamic religious authorities, including the state Shariah Court, for her wrongful prosecution on a khalwat charge, lawyer Cecil Rajendra said today.
Cecil, who held a watching brief for the Bar Council and the National Human Rights Society on Halimah’s case, said he is prepared to take up the case and will meet the migrant who works as a reflexologist and her boss, Datin Josephine Ong to discuss their options.
“Halimah was like under house arrest with this conviction hanging over her for more than two years. It is a gross injustice that should not be overlooked,” he said.
“Her employer had to fork out legal fees and bail over this case on top of the trouble this case had put them through so we are looking at pursuing this for wrongful prosecution.”
He said the case had infringed on Halimah’s rights as a migrant worker, as a woman and as a religious minority.
“They did not even bother to apologise for wrongful prosecution of someone whom they had no jurisdiction over,” he told reporters after the decision by the lower shariah court this morning.
The 42-year-old who goes by one name was accused of committing khalwat or close proximity at a reflexology centre here in December 2011.
In May 2012, she was convicted after pleading guilty to the charge, although she later said she did not understand it was an offence in Malaysia nor enforceable only on Muslims.
She was subsequently sentenced to jail for 14 days and fined RM3,000 but was allowed a stay of execution pending an appeal.
Her appeals to the Shariah High Court and subsequently the Shariah Court of Appeal were struck off and a retrial was ordered.
Today, the Penang Lower Shariah Court ordered her acquittal and discharge following an application by Shariah chief prosecutor Azman Ismail to drop the case.
