Singapore court confirms life sentence for Indonesian maid

Singapore - The Singapore High Court confirmed on Thursday a life imprisonment for an Indonesian maid who killed her employer's 75-year-old mother in 2005, media reports said. The maid, who was identified as Barokah, 29, pushed Wee Keng Wah from their ninth-floor flat after the elderly woman scolded her for sneaking out to meet a man. In 2007, the maid was sentenced to life imprisonment and appealed. However, a re-hearing into the case did not change the judge's mind, the online edition of the Straits Times newspaper reported. The second hearing was ordered to evaluate if the life sentence was appropriate. Barokah, had escaped the death sentence when the original murder charge was reduced to manslaughter after she was diagnosed by psychiatrists to be moderately depressed. In the re-hearing the judge noted that Barokah's depression was largely self-induced by her choice to have affairs with men and that she had created the situation leading to the crime by sneaking out of her employer's flat that fateful night. http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/257561,singapore-court-confirms-life-sentence-for-indonesian-maid.html