KUALA LUMPUR - A MALAYSIAN court has slashed a 75-year sentence given to a man convicted of raping his stepdaughter, saying that judges should not 'react vengefully' to shocking crimes, a report said on Tuesday.

The 48-year-old rubber tapper, who is a Thai national, was accused of raping his stepdaughter when she was 13 years old and continuing his attacks for two years until she gave birth to his baby boy.

He was sentenced to 75 years in jail and 50 strokes of the rotan - an excruciating punishment carried out with a long bamboo cane - but the Court of Appeal said the punishment was illogical as he would die in jail.

'One should not be blinded by emotion and react vengefully', said Judge Suriyadi Halim Omar, according to the New Straits Times newspaper.

Judge Suriyadi said the tapper's actions were 'cannibalistic in nature' and accused him of behaving like an animal but said he must be sentenced within the law.

'You are lucky. The law is not as evil as you are', he said, ordering him to spend 30 years in jail and be dealt 24 strokes of the rotan - the maximum number of strokes that can be imposed on a convicted person under the law. -- AFP