Religious teacher gets 6 years, 4 strokes for sexually assaulting students

Religious teacher gets 6 years, 4 strokes for sexually assaulting students

Khairi Fitri Baharom pleads guilty to 12 charges of sexual assault against seven students.

seremban court
The Seremban sessions court was told that the offences were committed at the boarding school in Jempol and at a house in Kuala Pilah between March 2024 and January 2025. (Facebook pic)
PETALING JAYA:
A boarding school religious teacher has been sentenced to six years in prison and four strokes of the rotan by the Seremban sessions court on 12 counts of sexual assault against seven students.

Khairi Fitri Baharom, 38, who is also a warden at the school, pleaded guilty to all the charges before judge Surita Budin today.

Surita ordered the prison sentence to run from the date of his arrest on May 25.

She also ordered the accused to undergo counselling and be placed under police supervision for one year upon his release.

All 12 offences were said to have been committed at the boarding school in Jempol and at a house in Kuala Pilah between March 2024 and January 2025.

On six of the charges, Khairi is accused of committing carnal intercourse against the order of nature without consent against five of the students, who were aged nine to 12 at the time.

On the remaining six charges, he is accused of sexually assaulting six of the students, also aged nine to 12.

Earlier, defence counsel Ahmad Loqman Hakim Ahmad Khairi, in seeking a lenient sentence for his client, told the court that Khairi was unmarried and was the sole caretaker of his ailing mother.

Deputy public prosecutors Norazihah Asmuni and Nurul Balkis Zunaidi urged the court to impose a proportionate sentence, given the seriousness of the offence.

They argued that the accused, who was entrusted with the role of teacher and warden, should have protected his students, but took advantage of his position to commit the crimes instead.

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