SHAH ALAM: Five friends were sent to prison by the high court here yesterday afternoon for abducting a 5-year-old boy in 2015.
Mohammad Norhafizie Abdullah, 21; Mohammad Fairderus Suhaini, 33; Nashamizie Shahidan, 21; and, two others who had not yet turned 18 at the time the offence was committed, were handed the sentence after pleading guilty to abducting and confining the boy for a 10-day period and seeking a ransom totaling RM1.46 million.
According to the facts of the case, the ransom they had demanded was in the form of RM200,000, US$100,000 and A$100,000 in cash.
High Court judge Datuk Ghazali Cha sentenced Fairderus to five years in prison; Nashamizie to four years’ imprisonment; and, Norhafizie and the other two, who were just a few months’ shy of their 18th birthdays at the time of the offence, to 42 months in jail.
He ordered all their sentences to begin from Jan 31, 2015, the day they were arrested.
When meting out the sentences, Ghazali said the court took into consideration the prosecution and defence submissions besides a report from Welfare Department officers on the state of the victim.
“This is just the punishment that you receive now, but you must remember that you will also receive punishment in the hereafter. I hope that all of you will repent and not repeat the same mistake again.
The five were charged with committing the offence at No. 18, Lorong Samarinda 30A in Taman Maznah, Klang, about 2am on Jan 22, 2015.
Earlier, in asking the court for a heavy sentence to be handed down, deputy public prosecutor Nurul Izzah Abdul Mutalib asked the court to take into account public interest in the case as well as the psychological effects on the victim and the family during the period the child had been confined by the accused.
“The child was not just taken away and confined in an apartment in Port Dickson, Negri Sembilan, but he was drugged so that he would be asleep throughout the period. It was a disgusting act and made the parents of the victim restless with worry about whether he was alive or not,” she said.
The accused, who were represented by counsels Mohd Shaiful Nizam Mohd Noor, Anuar Rauf, Siti Khadijah Bahaudin and Akmal Jusoh, pleaded for light sentences, saying that they regretted their actions.
In mitigation, they also said that this was their first offence, adding that three of them had taken their Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia examinations while in prison and obtained good results, while one even sent contributions of food, clothing and diapers to the victim’s family.