Court to cane duo in exchange for shorter jail sentence

PEKAN NENAS: Two Indonesians, out of a group of 25 people who where caught trying to sneak out of the country illegally without proper documents asked the court to be caned in exchange for shorter jailtime.

Sessions Court judge Salawati Djambri allowed their mitigation and sentenced Wawan Ghazali and Karmin Saudi, both 30, to three months imprisonment and ordered them to be give two strokes of the cane each.

For the other 17 suspects who were also arrested together with the duo without proper documents, each were sentenced to eight months imprisonment.

Salawati also sentenced six of the suspects in the group who had overstayed between three and 15 months imprisonment.

According to the facts of the case, the army arrested 25 suspects, 19 men and six women, who were aged between 23 and 29 at Ladang Tembikai in Kota Tinggi at 7.30am on May 31.

In another unrelated case, a 56-year-old Singaporean businessman was slapped with a RM12,000 fine for hiring a 32-year-old Indonesian illegally to work at his furniture shop in Taman Industri Sri Sulong in Batu Pahat at 11.20am on May 26.

He paid the fine.

Norhasimah Othman and Mohmad Hanapiah Rosdi prosecuted the cases.

In another case, Singapore's Immigration and Checkpoints Authority detained a 37-year-old Malaysian and seized some 6,500 cartons of illicit cigarettes in a hidden compartment in his lorry at the Tuas checkpoint several days ago.

The suspect, together with the cigarettes worth RM1.6mil and the vehicle, has since been handed over to the Singapore Customs for investigations.