A 22-year-old Indonesian maid has been sentenced to death by hanging for murdering her female employer after an argument over burnt curry, local media reported today.

Herlina Trisnawati, who was 19 at the time when she hit Soon Lay Chuan on the head with a stone pestle, appeared puzzled when the sentence was passed and asked for permission to see her parents, the official Bernama news agency said.

High Court judge KN Segara ordered that the visit should be arranged, and told Herlina: "Don't worry, you will not be hanged tomorrow."

The judge, who rejected her defence of temporary insanity, said she could appeal the sentence.

Herlina had told the court she had been hit by her employer before striking her with the pestle in the kitchen of her home near Kuala Lumpur on Aug 14,

The judge said neighbours had testified that while she had often complained about being overworked, she had not mentioned being hit by Soon, the manager of an export agency.

Overworked maids

More than 90 percent of some 240,000 domestic workers in Malaysia are Indonesians, who typically work 16 to 18 hours daily with no rest day and earn less than RM1 an hour, the US-based Human Rights Watch said in a recent report.

Most maids are confined to their workplace and their salary is often withheld until the end of the standard two-year contract, after which most are never paid in full and have little chance of redress, it said.

Many also suffer psychological, physical and sexual assault by labour agents and employers, according to the report.