PUTRAJAYA – The Federal Court today upheld the death penalty for a serial rapist known as “Rambo Bentong”, who was convicted of murdering a teenager and an employee of the Bentong Forestry Department.
Rabidin Satir, 53, had applied for a review of his death sentence under the Revision of Sentence of Death and Imprisonment for Natural Life (Temporary Jurisdiction of the Federal Court) Act 2023, but the Federal Court’s three-man panel rejected his application.
Presiding on the panel were Chief Justice Tun Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat, Court of Appeal President Tan Sri Abang Iskandar Abang Hashim and Federal Court judge Datuk Nordin Hassan.
Deputy public prosecutor Datuk Yusaini Amer Abdul Karim opposed Rabidin’s review application and urged the court to uphold the death sentence saying that the murders committed by Rabidin were brutal and inhumane.
He explained that in the first case, Rabidin was convicted of having entered the home of the 31-year-old Bentong Foresty Department employee in 2012 and fatally struck him on the head with a gun while he was asleep with his wife. Yusaini told the court that Rabidin also raped the pregnant wife of the deceased, twice.
The DPP said, in 2014, Rabidin was also convicted and sentenced to death for killing a 17-year-old girl at a house in Kg Ketari Bentong, Pahang.
Yusaini said Rabidin was also charged with raping the girl, but the high court acquitted him because the court could not ascertain whether the rape was committed while the teenager was alive or after her death.
Rabidin’s appeals in the Court of Appeal and Federal Court for both murder cases were dismissed.
His lawyer, Muhammad Fairuz Ahmad Yusof, asked the court to commute his client’s death sentence to life imprisonment, saying that Rabidin had apologised to the deceased’s family and that he was now suffering from high blood pressure and was wheelchair-bound.
Rabidin gained the nickname “Rambo Bentong” for living alone in the forest and using a “rambo” knife to threaten and assault his victims. – July 9, 2024