Crimes against women have been dominating the headlines lately, with heartbreaking stories of brutal murders and heinous acts of violence. We have all been consumed by the horrific cases of Dr. Moumita and Nirbhaya, but let's not forget that these atrocities are not limited to just one country. In Malaysia, a similar incident took place and yet it could have forgotten over the years.

October 7, 2000

At 7:45 am, 24-year-old Noor Suzaily Mukhtar left her rented home in Kampung Baru to go to work at the Pantai Medical Centre in Klang, where she worked as a computer engineer. A graduate from De Montfort University in the United Kingdom, Noor Suzaily described this job as her "dream job." She boarded an Ekspress Kiara bus, registration number WDE 4256, which was headed from the Klang bus terminal in Kuala Lumpur to Port Klang.

The bus arrived in Klang around 8:15 am, and most passengers alighted, leaving Noor Suzaily and a Bangladeshi national as the only remaining passengers. The Bangladeshi passenger also got off shortly after, leaving Noor Suzaily alone with the bus driver, Hanafi Mat Hassan.

The culprit & beast

Hanafi, 34, was a three-time divorcee with a criminal history, including a pending warrant for rape in Mentakab, Pahang, from 1988. He had also been convicted of robbery in Terengganu in 1996. Hanafi had only been working for the bus company for 10 days before this incident.

After diverting the bus route to Jalan Bukit Tinggi, Hanafi attacked Noor Suzaily. A witness, A. Devan, an 18-year-old student, noticed something suspicious while cycling to a tuition centre. He saw a topless woman inside the bus which fully tinted, frantically slamming her hands on the tinted window. Hanafi, seeing Devan, chased him away and drove off, but Devan, along with three other men, gave chase.

Devan later saw Hanafi hitching up his trousers while walking back to the driver's seat yet he couldn't chase the bus any longer as Devan was riding a bicycle. It was later revealed that Hanafi had stripped, tied, raped, and sodomized Noor Suzaily before strangling her with her own headscarf. Hanafi then dumped her naked body near a construction site on Jalan Bukit Tinggi and fled.





Later that afternoon, a member of the public discovered the lifeless body of Noor Suzaily and alerted the police. The body was taken to Tengku Ampuan Rahimah Hospital for a post-mortem, which revealed that she had been raped, sodomized, and strangled. The autopsy also documented 44 injuries, including a broken neck.

Hanafi was arrested three days later, on October 10, 2000, at the Port Klang bus terminal. He led the police to a bus terminal in North Klang, where they recovered Noor Suzaily’s handbag, which contained her identification documents.

Hanafi was charged with rape and murder on November 1, 2000, at the Shah Alam High Court. Despite pleading not guilty, he was found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging on April 26, 2006. He was also sentenced to 20 years in prison and received 12 strokes of the rotan for rape.

However, Hanafi exhausted his final appeal at the Federal Court on December 12, 2006 and he was executed by hanging on December 18, 2008, at Kajang Prison.

Well, it's been ages since the tragic incident took place, yet still remains as one of the most shocking scene that took in Malaysia.

Source : Wikipedia, Kosmo