A three-member Court of Appeal bench, chaired by Kamaludin Said, said an appeal by Abdul Ghani Abdul Karim, 48, for a reduction of the sentence first imposed by the sessions court had no merit.

Justices Ahmad Nasfy Yasin and Supang Lian were the panel members who sat to hear the appeal.

Earlier, the Court of Appeal heard that Ghani was a repeat offender, having committed a similar offence, for which he served 20 years in jail and received eight lashes. He was freed from prison in 2015.

Deputy public prosecutor Norzilati Izahani Zainal, who urged the bench to maintain the lower court’s sentence, said the appellant was a repeat offender.

“The trial judge had taken into account the previous conviction when sentencing the appellant (Ghani),” she said.

Ghani was charged with criminally intimidating the 29-year-old tourist with a screwdriver and later raping her at a budget hotel in Taman Seputeh, Brickfields, between 1.30am and 2am on Dec 24, 2018.

The sessions court had on July 23, 2020 sentenced Ghani to 20 years’ imprisonment and 16 strokes of the rotan for rape and five years’ jail for criminal intimidation after he was found guilty of both offences.

The jail terms, which were ordered to run concurrently, commenced on July 23, 2020.

Ghani’s earlier appeal to the High Court was dismissed on May 20, 2021.

The facts of the case revealed that Ghani had picked the victim up from Ampang in his taxi, but drove to the hotel instead of her intended destination.

Lawyer Izwan Ishak, from the National Legal Aid Foundation, appeared for the appellant.