MIRI (March 29): The Sessions Court here today fixed Aug 25 to 27 for the trial date of a 19-year-old youth who was accused of raping an underage girl while being detained at the Miri Central Police Station (CPS Miri) lockup in January this year.
Judge Mohd Taufik Mohd @ Mohd Yusoff set the date after allowing the application by Sarawak Director of Prosecution Mohammad Al-Saifi Hashim.
The defence counsels had also decided that the accused, Zuraini Razzi Raini would be represented by Ranbir Singh.
According to the facts of the case, Zuraini had allegedly raped the minor in the toilet of a lockup cell at the police station at around 4am on Jan 9 this year.
He was charged under Section 376(1) of the Penal Code which provides for a maximum imprisonment of 20 years and whipping, upon conviction.
Today’s pre-trial case management was to update the court on who would be representing Ruzaini in the case after the prosecution during the previous mentions told the court that there was issue of conflict of interest in the part of the defence.
This was because Ranbir and another defence counsel Gurvir, who are representing the two police corporals charged in connection with the rape of a minor by a detainee at Miri CPS are also representing Zuraini.
Mohammad Al-Saifi previously told the court that the two police corporals – Brase Omang, 54 and Edmund Jali, 44 would become prosecution witnesses in Zuraini’s case, and vice versa, and thus questioned as to how the defence counsels were going to cross-examine their own clients later during trial, unless they choose to represent one party only.
The issue was resolved today when the court was informed that the defence had decided that Brase would be represented by counsel Wendel Crocker while Edmund would be represented by Gurvir Singh Sandhu.
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