SINGAPORE – Shortly after being released from prison for a sex crime against a 15-year-old girl, a pedophile man searched for more victims.
Muhammad Hisham Abdul Karim, now 34, befriended an 11-year-old girl on Instagram in 2017 and asked him to meet him multiple times for sex.
Once, he offered her methamphetamine (commonly known as ice), which she smoked before engaging in sexual activity in the back of a truck.
Using the same method, he contacted six other girls between the ages of 10 and 12, hoping they would agree to have sex with him.
On Monday, the truck attendant was sentenced to 20 years in prison and 24 lashes.
The sentence imposed by the High Court was longer than the 16-year sentence sought by the prosecution.
Judge Mavis Thion said the crime was “premeditated and well-planned” and that the man initiated contact with the victim and had sex knowing full well that she was in elementary school. He said he suggested that
The judge also said his previous sentence “taught him nothing.”
Hisham pleaded guilty in 2017 to four counts of aggravated sexual assault by trespassing against an 11-year-old victim who was deemed legally unable to give consent.
Eleven charges were considered between November 2018 and September 2019, including six charges of attempted lewd acts from other girls.
A court heard that Hisham had been sentenced to 10 months in prison for sexually intercourse with a 15-year-old girl in March 2016.
After his release in May 2017, he found the 11-year-old victim and her elementary school friend on Instagram and sent her a friend request, which she accepted.
They kept sending messages to each other. He said he wanted to have sex with her and she agreed.
At one point, they agreed to meet at the stair landing of an apartment block.
The girl asked him to have sex with her, but he didn’t want her to get pregnant, so he had other penetrative sexual acts with her.
