Appeals court upholds man’s 10-year sentence for sodomising teen

2026-03-05 - 13:34

Justice Azman Abdullah said C Logenthiran’s guilty plea was not defective as it was made knowingly and with his admission to the facts of the case. PETALING JAYA: The Court of Appeal today upheld the 10-year prison sentence and two strokes of the rotan imposed on a 31-year-old man for sodomising a teenager in 2020. Bernama reported that a three-member bench, led by Justice Azman Abdullah, dismissed C Logenthiran’s appeal against his conviction and sentence. Also on the panel were Justices Noorin Badaruddin and Radzi Abdul Hamid. Kathan Maruthamuthu, a lawyer from the National Legal Aid Foundation, sought to have Logenthiran’s case remitted to the sessions court for trial, submitting that his client had made a conditional guilty plea. However, in delivering the court’s unanimous decision, Azman said court records showed no conditional guilty plea had been made by the former temple worker prior to sentencing by the sessions court. He said Logenthiran’s guilty plea was not defective as it was made knowingly and with his admission to the facts of the case, which were consistent with the charge. In 2024, the Kuala Kangsar sessions court in Perak sentenced Logenthiran to 10 years’ imprisonment and two strokes of the rotan after he pleaded guilty to committing carnal intercourse against the order of nature with the victim, then 15 years old, at a temple in Hulu Perak in February 2020. He was also ordered to undergo counselling while in prison and remain under police supervision for two years after completing his sentence. Last year, the High Court dismissed Logenthiran’s appeal and upheld the sessions court’s decision.