SINGAPORE: A Singaporean Muslim man with multiple wives and 66 children has been charged with raping five of his daughters in one of the city-state's worst sexual-abuse cases, press reports said on Friday.
The 45-year-old man, who cannot be named in order to protect the identities of his children, is well-versed in Islamic history and fluent in Arabic, local newspapers said.
He distorted teachings in the Koran to justify incest and even managed to convince some of his wives that he had ownership over his daughters, which included the right to have sex with them, the Straits Times said.
He raped five of his daughters with the help of some of the wives between December 2003 and June 2005, when the girls were between 12 and 15 years old. Two got pregnant and had abortions.
“The incidents of abuse were so numerous that they (the daughters) were hard-pressed to keep count," deputy public prosecutor Eugene Lee was quoted as telling a trial court on Thursday.
The evening daily New Paper said the man had 10 wives -- four of them legally married to him under Islamic practice. The abuses only came to light when one of his victims stepped forward in June 2005.
Defence lawyers said the accused believed that if he could satisfy his daughters' sexual needs, they were less likely to have pre-marital sex with boys.
The man pleaded guilty to nine charges of rape and aggravated rape on Thursday, with another 34 incidents taken into consideration.
The maximum penalty for rape is 20 years in jail and caning. Polygamy is illegal in Singapore, where Muslims constitute 15 percent of the population.
