SINGAPORE: A police raid on a digital marketer’s home in May 2022 uncovered 285 sexually explicit videos showing over 400 children in his possession.
The videos include those involving infant boys below a year old.
Investigations revealed that Danial Abdul Rahman had shared such content with others via Twitter and Telegram, but did not receive any money for doing so.
On July 14, the 31-year-old Singaporean was sentenced to three years and a month in jail, and four strokes of the cane after he pleaded guilty to being in possession of such pornographic material.
Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Benjamin Low told the court that in 2017, Danial went on the Dark Web and downloaded child pornography onto his Google Drive account.
He also joined various channels on messaging platform Telegram where such obscene materials were shared and distributed.
In 2018, Danial created a Twitter account and posted obscene material showing male adults engaging in sexual activities with one another. He later had up to 500 followers on the platform.
The DPP said that some of these followers and other Twitter users then sent him private messages, seeking his help in downloading obscene material, including those involving children.
Danial agreed to do so and shared such content with them, before Twitter suspended his account in May 2021.
After that, he started receiving requests for child pornography from multiple Telegram users. He then downloaded such content and shared them with the users.
Investigations revealed that Danial distributed child pornography to multiple people, including at least five users via Twitter, for at least four years from 2018 to March 2022.
Court documents did not disclose how his offence came to light, but police raided his home at around 10am on May 12, 2022 and found 285 sexually explicit videos showing over 400 children, including infant boys below a year old. The videos were between 20 seconds and nearly two hours long.
The DPP had urged the court to sentence Danial to up to three years and three months’ jail, and six strokes of the cane, adding: “At least one video showed clear indications that the young male subject depicted in that video was in pain and distress, as evidenced by his crying.” - The Straits Times/ANN
