/asia
(CNN) -- A judge in Malaysia sentenced an Indonesian man to five years in prison for burying his day-old baby alive in a jungle, a local newspaper reported Tuesday.
Ramlee Basa-ruddin took the infant from his 20-year-old girlfriend about 12 hours after she gave birth, and buried the girl alive in a shallow hole behind their house, the New Straits Times said.
Basa-ruddin, 38, pleaded guilty to unintentional homicide in the January 8 incident in the southern Johor state.
Magistrate Judge Nor-syahid Malik was quoted in the newspaper as saying he could not imagine the "level of cruelty" in the man's crime.
"To bury your own child when it is the duty of a father to protect and nurture his offspring," the judge said. "Your crime deserves a punishment befitting its ghastliness and to serve as a lesson to society."
The judge also sentenced Ramlee to an additional year in prison and to four strokes of the cane because the Indonesian man was in the country illegally.
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