A 45-year-old jobless man was on Wednesday convicted of forcing his way into his neighbours' flat, then raping and trying to murder their Indonesian maid. The woman, who was 26 when she was attacked in 2009, was found at the foot of the block by passers-by.

The man was initially accused of attempting to murder the maid by trying to strangle her with a piece of raffia string and then throwing her out of a second-floor kitchen window.

On Wednesday, Justice Chan Seng Onn found him guilty only of the act of choking her, saying that the prosecution had not proved beyond a reasonable doubt that he had hurled her out the window.

During his trial last year, the man's lawyers asserted that the maid had jumped out of the window in an apparent escape bid. The man is expected to be sentenced on Friday.