Source: The New Paper

He had dropped out of school in Primary 5 and was not as “highly educated” as his wife.

Besides, she had never been to prison before.

So despite being the family’s sole breadwinner, he felt that he should be the one going to jail so that his wife, Madam Rozanah Mohamed Yusoff, 24, can look after their two other children.

Sallehan Alauddin, 27, a cleaner, told the court yesterday: “Rozanah has not been in prison before and I do not want her parents to be disappointed.”

It was not mentioned in court whether Sallehan had previously been to jail.

Sallehan is accused of murdering his 23-month-old daughter, Natalie Nikie Alisyia Sallehan, at their Boon Lay flat on 6 Jan. If convicted, he faces the death penalty.

Sallehan also faces one count of sexually penetrating the toddler’s anus with an unknown object and another count of ill-treating her on that day.

He claimed that his wife had hit their eldest daughter with a broomstick twice but did not mention it to the police to protect her.

Madam Rozanah has denied doing so. She testified earlier that she had seen her husband kicking and stamping on their daughter.

But Sallehan insisted that he had only slapped and punched the girl and did not mean to kill her.

He told Deputy Public Prosecutor Winston Cheng: “I wanted to discipline her. I did not know that my anger would lead to all that.”

IQ test

Yesterday, DPP Cheng said that Sallehan had made “obvious errors” in his IQ test, which showed that he had an IQ of 69 and was mildly retarded.

Dr Velda Chen, a clinical psychologist from the Institute of Mental Health, had administered the test to him.

Her conclusion was that he did not put in much effort to answer the questions.

She said that he had found it hard to complete the simpler questions but completed the harder tasks quite easily.

Sallehan denied that he had performed poorly on purpose and said that the first questions on the test were easy but they got progressively harder.

He added that his mind was troubled at that time because of Nikie’s death.

Sallehan finished his testimony yesterday.

His lawyer, Mr N Kanagavijayan asked Justice Lee Seiu Kin for time to find a medical expert to examine Sallehan and testify for the defence.

He said he had tried to find an expert earlier but was unsuccessful.

Mr Kanagavijayan said he would close the defence’s case if his further attempts to find the expert also failed.

Justice Lee adjourned the case for four weeks.