Yuliana Should Have Been Given Legal Counsel

So all right. Most everyone saw on Youtube what the 24 year-old Indonesian maid did to her employer's  baby. Horrific. Tossing and flipping him on the mat like he was a doll.

Only a mad person would do that. Or a person with no love or care or a heart.

She was captured on the CCTV at the couple's Kuantan home on Friday (Feb 15).

Mohamed Zamri and Nina Suraya Sulaiman - the young  Kuantan couple -were having breakfast when they caught the visual on Zamri's cellphone.

It was Yuliana's first day at work.

By the following Tuesday, she was arrested, detained,charged in court and convicted of attempted murder and abuse of  four-month-old Mohamed Hareez Mohamed Zamri -- 20 years jail (15 for the first charge and 5 for the second.)

Yuliana, a mother of two from Aceh - had pleaded guilty to the charges and had no legal counsel.

I remember the swift comments on facebook when the footage was uploaded and went viral. People were horrified. Some went ballistic. Others were baying for blood.

I was among those who were so so upset. The poor little helpless baby.Like everyone else, I thought she was mentally "tak betul" because if you had seen the video, you would see her carrying the baby after presumably bathing him, like normal, towel-drying him, feeding him with a bottle, and only a few minutes after, that she seemed to have lost it.

But "attempted murder"? and 20 years? No legal representation?

I wanted to know whether she was mad, or simply bad and evil? And why had the baby's parents left him with the maid who had just started employment?

We all want justice to be served  swiftly. And I could hear the cheers when she was convicted so swiftly -- "padan muka", "she deserves a life sentence", "et her rot in jail".

Those were emotions I heard. Those showed a sense of vicarious satisfaction because -- hah -- this time it is a bad Indon maid. Not a bad Malaysian employer.

But this woman had no legal counsel to advise her on such a seriosu charge dof attempted murder.

I don't believe for one minute that Yuliana should go free. She has to be punished. But I think the judge erred in trying hard to make an example of her.

Do read my Saturday NST column here:

THE anger was palpable. The reaction to the conviction was jubilant. It was emotional. The maid did it and she must be punished.
Everyone agrees that 24-year-old Indonesian Yuliana, whose first day at work for a young Kuantan couple last Friday was to be her last, did a horrific thing to four-month-old Mohamed Hareez Mohamed Zamri at their Lorong Bukit Setongkol home.
Our hearts went out to his parents -- Mohamed Zamri and Nina Suraya Sulaiman.
So, when the mother of two from Aceh was quickly arrrested, detained, charged in a Sessions Court and sentenced to 20 years jail -- all within three days -- everyone was vicariously satisfied.
Everyone applauded.

The rest of the article HERE.