KAJANG: A senior engineer has been sentenced to four months' jail and fined RM550,000 by the Sessions Court here Thursday for keeping illegal wildlife including a tiger and a crocodile in his house compound.
Judge Noridah Adam handed down the sentence on Mohd Taha Abd Wahab, 51, after he maintained his guilty plea on nine counts of possessing protected wildlife species.
According to the Wildlife and National Parks Department (Perhilitan), the fine was by far the highest amount ever recorded by them.
On the first charge of being in possession of an endangered tigress, the court sentenced him to four months in prison and a fine of RM300,000 in default 12 months' jail and ordered him to serve the prison sentence from the date of arrest on Oct 19, 2016.
On the second charge of keeping a leopard, he was fined RM80,000 in default six months' jail, while for the third and fourth counts of keeping a red eagle and a mountain raven, the man was fined RM50,000 or six months' jail and RM30,000 or six months' jail, respectively.
The accused was also fined RM30,000 in default six months' imprisonment for being in possession of two white-crowned Shama birds.
On the sixth to the ninth count of keeping a Schneider's Dwarf Caiman crocodile, a mouse deer, a 'Tiong Mas' bird and a white-rumped Shama, the accused was fined RM15,000 in default three months' jail, on each count.
The father of four paid all the fines.
In mitigation, his counsel Zaflee Pakwanteh appealed for lesser fines and minimum jail sentence on grounds that the accused, who was suffering from various ailments, had repented and promised not to keep anymore protected and endangered wildlife species without permit.
"My client was remanded for three days and it was a frightening experience for him. It was his ignorance and deep love for animals that he had kept them without any permit, but this has resulted in great loss to him," he said.
The animals are protected species under First Schedule of the Wildlife Conservation Act 2010 (Act 716). – Bernama
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