Woman sentenced to 30 years for torturing, starving maid to death

Awoman in Myanmar was sentenced to 30 years imprisonment Tuesday for starving and torturing her 24-year-old maid to death.

The 41-year-old accused, identified as Gaiyathiri Murugayan, physically assaulted the maid almost every day for a year and starved her. A CCTV camera installed in her home caught her slapping, pushing, and stomping on the maid. The accused was also caught on camera pulling the victim by the hair and burning her with a heated iron, Straits Times reported.

The maid, identified as Piang Don, died on July 26, 2016. She weighed a mere 50 pounds when she died, and investigation revealed she was often given only some bread soaked in water to eat. It was also revealed in the last 12 days of her life, the victim was tied to the window grills at night.

Following an investigation, the accused was taken into custody and charged with culpable homicide, among other charges. She pleaded guilty to the charges in February this year and was sentenced to 30 years imprisonment, South China Morning Post reported.

The accused's defense attorney, Joseph Chen, asked for a reduction in the jail sentence. He painted his client as a mentally disordered mother, and said she was remorseful of what she had done.

During sentencing, judge See Oon described the case as "among the worst type of culpable homicide" and said, "Words cannot describe the abject cruelty of the accused's appalling conduct," Asia One reported.

The accused and her husband had finalized their divorce in January last year. Murugayan's mother, 62-year-old Prema Naraynasamy, who often stayed with the couple, was also charged for assaulting the maid. Her case was, however, pending in court.

In April, a 42-year-old woman in Singapore was arrested for physically abusing her maid on multiple occasions between February and October 2020. The woman was accused of burning the victim with a hot iron and punching her eyes. She was charged with two counts of voluntarily causing hurt, one count each of voluntarily causing hurt by dangerous means and voluntarily causing grievous hurt.