Kota Kinabalu: A 49-year-old gardener was jailed 26 months and ordered given two lashes of the cane for cheating a man of RM52,300 over registration of non-existent documents.
Magistrate Stephanie Sherron Abbie meted out the sentence to Ibrahim Haron on Thursday after he pleaded guilty.
Ibrahim, whose case came up for further mention on Thursday, informed the court of his wish to change his plea to guilty.
He admitted to having cheated Manan Orat, a MyPR holder, by offering to register MyPR, MyKAS and IMM13 which did not exist and dishonestly induced Manan to hand over RM52,300 to him. The offence was committed between July-December, 2019.
The Magistrate had on June 10 this year ordered Ibrahim, who was on bail, to enter his defence after ruling that the prosecution had established a prima facie case against him.
A warrant of arrest was issued against Ibrahim when he failed to appear in court on July 6, this year. The Magistrate ordered Ibrahim, who was re-arrested on Aug 4 this year, to serve the jail sentence from the date of his re-arrest.
Earlier, during mitigation, Ibrahim requested for a lenient sentence.
However, Inspector Suzie @ Stephanie Kupit applied for the maximum sentence on the grounds that the case had reached the stage where Ibrahim had been ordered to enter his defence.
The cost of the prosecution and court should also be taken into account, said Suzie, adding that it was also served as a lesson to the public not to commit similar offence.
Ibrahim was charged under Section 420 of the Penal Code, which carries a jail term of between one year and 10 years and with whipping and liability of a fine, on conviction.
In another case, four people were penalised for committing drug-related offences.
Raffi Sanuy and Walter Norabidin pleaded guilty to taking syabu and were fined RM1,800 or eight months jail each. The other two, Sofri Amiludin and Freddie Paul, were jailed 14 months and 10 months respectively after they admitted to having syabu.
Taking drugs under Section 15(1) of the Dangerous DrugS Act provides for a fine of up to RM5,000 or up to two years jail on conviction, while having syabu under Section 12 (2) of the Dangerous Drug Act 1952 provides for a fine of up to RM100,000 or up to five years jail or both, if convicted.
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