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Jail for man who threatened to kill his maid after she rejected his romantic advances
Muhammad Khairulnaim Rosli pleaded guilty to one charge of criminal intimidation after pleading guilty to threatening to kill his maid on Jan 12, 2024. ST PHOTO: KELVIN CHNG
Jail for man who threatened to kill his maid after she rejected his romantic advances
SINGAPORE – After his romantic advances were rejected by his maid , a man held up a knife and pointed it at her, threatening to kill her.
On June 16, Muhammad Khairulnaim Rosli, 37, pleaded guilty to one charge of criminal intimidation after pleading guilty to threatening to kill his maid on Jan 12, 2024.
He has been sentenced to 40 days' jail.
The court heard he had told his maid he had developed feelings for her in December 2023, just three months into her employment. She lived in the same household as Khairulnaim, his wife and their two children.
Feeling disturbed and uncomfortable with her employer's advances, she told him she did not like him and blocked him from her Instagram, TikTok and WhatsApp accounts.
Undeterred, Khairulnaim told his wife he harboured romantic feelings for their maid, leading his wife to ask him for a divorce on Jan 1, 2024.
After waking up from his afternoon nap on Jan 12, 2024, Khairulnaim started to feel anger towards his maid as he felt she had ruined his life.
Sometime around 6pm that day, he went into the kitchen to pick up a knife with a 16cm blade and walked out to the hallway to face his maid. He then brandished the knife at her and threatened to kill her, before retreating into his bedroom.
Shortly after, the maid slipped away from the flat and ran to the void deck as she feared for her safety.
A member of the public found her crying and decided to make a police report on her behalf. Khairulnaim was arrested on the same day.
During court proceedings on June 16, Khairulnaim initially disputed the prosecution's charge, arguing that he had only threatened to kill his maid verbally – without a knife.
When District Judge Lorraine Ho asked him to explain what he meant, he said he had taken the knife only after he threatened to kill his maid, as a way to intimidate her further.
He added that he had not pointed the knife at her, instead taking it and walking back into his bedroom. But he later relented and admitted that the sequence of events read out by the prosecution was true.
In mitigation, Khairulnaim claimed to have since been diagnosed with intermittent explosive disorder at the Institute of Mental Health, and that he is currently seeking treatment.
He later confirmed that he was not relying on the medical report to suggest his diagnosis had any contributory links to the incident and was simply using it to show remorse and mitigate his punishment .
The offence of criminal intimidation carries an imprisonment term of up to seven years, a fine or both.
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