The Indonesian’s alleged ordeal in 2014 was described in disturbing detail in a BBC Indonesia report, where she claimed her employer beat her daily, leaving her bruised and bloodied.
Meriance, who was 32 at the time, said her employer also did not allow her to leave the apartment in Ampang where she worked.
Detailing her horrific experience, she claimed her employer also tortured her using a hot iron, tweezers, hammer, baton and pliers.
She said the beatings started three weeks after she started her job when she mistakenly put fish in the freezer instead of the refrigerator. The employer then struck her with the frozen fish, which caused her head to bleed.
Meriance claimed she was beaten every day after that.
The mother of four alleged that the torture and beatings only stopped when her employer grew tired, and she would then order Meriance to clean up her own blood that had splattered on the floor and walls.
After eight months, Meriance wrote a note detailing her plight and threw it out of the locked iron gates.
“Help me, I am being tortured by my employer,” Meriance wrote. “I’m covered in blood every day, help me!”
A neighbour found the note and alerted the authorities, and Meriance was rescued the same day.
The BBC Indonesia report said the abuse Meriance faced was so severe that her husband, Karvius, couldn’t recognise her after she was rescued.
While her employer was charged in 2015 with attempted murder, grievous hurt, human trafficking and immigration violations, prosecutors dropped the case in 2017 after citing insufficient evidence.
Indonesian ambassador Hermono, who met Meriance last October, said the embassy had been lobbying for the case to be re-opened.
Malaysia’s foreign ministry told BBC Indonesia it would “ensure that justice would be served according to the law”.
Employers back in court
Meanwhile, lawyer CR Selva told FMT that Meriance’s former employers were charged again in January, with the case fixed for mention today before Wan Mohd Norisham Wan Yaakob at the Ampang sessions court.
Selva, who held a watching brief for the embassy, said the employers, Serene Ong Su Ping and Sang Yoke Leng, were previously given a discharge not amounting to acquittal (DNAA) in 2017.
Sang and Ong have now been charged with human trafficking while Ong also faces additional charges of attempted murder and causing grievous hurt.
The case will be mentioned again on April 17.