Kota Kinabalu: Eighteen illegal immigrants were jailed by the Sessions Court here after pleading guilty to entering Sabah without valid passes.
Judge Hurman Hussain sentenced 17 of the accused, comprising eight Filipino men, five Filipino women and four Indonesian men, to four months’ imprisonment each from the date of their arrest.
They were convicted under Section 6(1)(c) of the Immigration Act 1959/63 before being referred to the Malaysian Immigration Department (JIM) for further action.
In a separate case, a Filipino man was jailed for a total of 10 months and sentenced to one stroke of the cane after pleading guilty to two charges of illegal entry and illegally re-entering Sabah without valid documents after being deported.
The accused, Adam, 24, was jailed for four months for entering Sabah without a valid pass on Aug 19 at a house in Kampung Paka-Paka, Kota Belud.
Adam was also sentenced to another six months’ imprisonment and one stroke of the cane for illegally re-entering the State after he had been lawfully removed from Malaysia on May 11, 2023.
The court ordered the jail terms to run separately before referring the accused to JIM for further action.
Immigration Officer Gressia Yolanda Ismail Uvaraj appeared for the prosecution.
