KEY POINTS:
KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysians have reacted with outrage and revulsion to the country's most horrifying crime in years - the murder of an 8-year-old girl who had been tortured, sexually abused and then dumped in a sports bag.
Malaysian dailies and internet blogs have been filled with anger and disbelief after the girl's naked body was stuffed in the bag and left outside a shop near the capital on Monday, fuelling talk that she was the victim of a serial sex offender.
At first, no one came forward to claim the dead girl's body, but the mystery deepened yesterday when police identified the victim from DNA tests as a missing girl, Nurin Jazlin Jazimin, whose parents had already viewed and disowned the body on Monday.
Nurin was reported missing on August 20 after she went alone to a night market in Kuala Lumpur, local media said. She was last seen being dragged into a white van by a man.
Nurin's father refused to accept the DNA result yesterday, state news agency Bernama said. He and his wife had earlier said that the dead girl did not look like their daughter and had a birthmark on her left thigh that they did not recognise.
- Reuters