A 73-year-old former Islamic religion teacher was sentenced to 16 months in prison yesterday after being after pleading guilty last month to charges that he had molested one of his students under the guise of trying to cure her infertility.
The man, whose identity cannot legally be disclosed in order to protect the victim’s identity, was an officially accredited teacher with the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore (MUIS) at the time of the incident, according to the Straits Times (his accreditation has since been stripped).
His victim, a 36-year-old woman, had not just been the teacher’s student, her family had also been friends with him for over a decade. She also referred to him as an ustaz, an Arabic word for a respected teacher of religion.
According to court documents, a week before the incident the teacher told the victim that somebody had used black magic on her to make her infertile and instructed her to bring certain items to their class next week as part of a treatment for her condition.
On Aug 26, 2017, the victim came to the mosque, where the ustaz told her that she might have been cursed by one of her husband’s relatives who had wanted him to marry another woman.
The teacher then instructed the class’ other student to switch off the lights in the back of the room and to keep watch to make sure nobody entered. He then took the victim to the back of the room and instructed her to remove articles of clothing before he began molesting her as part of his supposed treatment.
“Subsequently, the victim came to her senses, pushed the accused away and pulled her clothing back down over her body,” said the prosecutor as quoted by Channel News Asia.
After telling her teacher that what they had done felt wrong, the ustaz claimed the victim had been partially cured while instructing her not to tell her family about the incident.
That same day, the victim went to a homeopathic medical clinic and was told that there was nothing wrong with her and she was not the victim of black magic. Soon after, she filed a report with the police.
The ustaz initially disputed the charges, but two days before the scheduled start of his trial, he decided to plead guilty to a single molestation charge.
The teacher’s lawyer argued for a sentence of no more than 11 months, saying his client was in poor health, was extremely remorseful for his actions, and had made many contributions to his community.
However, the public prosecutor argued that the teacher’s poor health shouldn’t be a consideration as he could still receive treatment in prison. In the end, the judge agreed with the prosecution’s 16-month sentencing recommendation.
According to Today Online, the man is currently out on $5,000 bail and the judge allowed him to begin his sentence on May 15 so that he could be with his daughter when she gave birth.
In a statement, MUIS said it did not condone the man’s “reprehensible” actions, which were “clearly not in accordance with the teachings of Islam”.
