KUALA LUMPUR • A Malaysian man has been slapped with more than 600 charges of sexual assault against his daughter, and could face a jail term of over 12,000 years if found guilty, officials said yesterday.

Court officials took two days to read out all 626 charges against the 36-year-old divorcee and finished yesterday afternoon. They included 599 charges of sodomy against the 15-year-old girl, as well as counts of incest, rape and other sex crimes.

The bespectacled suspect, in a grey T-shirt and blue trousers, was calm when the charges were read in court. He is being called a "monster dad" in the Malaysian media.

He is alleged to have sodomised and raped his teen daughter more than 200 times in the first three months of this year.

According to the charge sheet, he allegedly sodomised the girl three times a day at their home in Sungai Way, Petaling Jaya, between 6am and 7am, from 1pm to 2pm and between 11pm and 12.30am.

He pleaded not guilty and the case will now proceed to trial.

"He faces a prison sentence of over 12,000 years," Mr Aimi Syazwani, a deputy public prosecutor, said at a newly established special court for sex crimes against children in Putrajaya. For each charge of sodomy, the man can be punished with a maximum jail term of 20 years and caning. He faces a rape charge that carries a maximum sentence of 20 years, and 30 other charges of sexual assault, each punishable by up to 20 years' jail.

Judge Yong Zarida Sazali denied the man bail after prosecutors warned there was a danger of him fleeing or intimidating witnesses.

The suspect cannot be named to protect the victim. Local media said the girl revealed the ordeal to her mother only after she learnt her father planned to take her two younger sisters away to live with him. The man, who sold investment products, was arrested on July 26.

The offences were allegedly committed between January and July, when the girl was living with him.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, REUTERS, THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK