KOTA KINABALU: The Sessions Court here yesterday fined a local man RM15,000, in default, eight months in jail for insulting the Sultan of Perak Sultan Azlan Shah about five years ago.
Judge Ummu Kalthom Abdul Samad had earlier found Rutinin Suhaimin, 41, guilty of posting offending remarks on a website http://books.dreambooks.com/duliduli.html that was linked to the website of the Sultan Perak, namely www.sultanperak.gov.my.
The court handed down the sentence yesterday on Rutinin, who was defended by counsel Muammar Julkarnain.
In her reserved decision, she said that in deciding appropriate sentence, she was taking an approach to striking the balance between the accused and the public and to deter others from committing a similar offence.
Noting that where the offence was committed way back in 2009, immediately after the 12th general election and there were some disputes over seats in the Perak State Assembly.
She also took into account that initially this case had gone for trial before another Sessions Court until the prosecution stage and upon appeal the High Court ordered the accused to enter his defence.
“And in a way this is not a simplicity of guilty case and it is undisputed that this nature of offence has no place to be given a bond of good behaviour as suggested by the counsel as it would send a wrong message to would-be offenders and the public at large, then offensively uncontrolled and virulent comment can be indiscriminately posted on the internet without a serious repercussion and that is not a message this court would like to send out,” she ruled.
Ummu Kalthom further said that Senior Federal Counsel Jamil Aripin had submitted that this particular offence needed to be curbed and he was suggesting that public interest would be less served by a custodial sentence since there is no more decency and morality.
However, Ummu Kalthom said that this court must also look at the whole facts of the case and this has to be balanced with the facts of the offence that was committed in 2009.
“This court is of the view that cases are not always light except superficial and there are other matters need to be considered including the word posted on the website and the accused totally behaved irresponsibly and be punished for his own wrong.
“The evidence showed that the circumstances in which it was committed and the evidence showed that the accused made unsafe reposting on the website which is linked to the website of his Royal Highness the Sultan of Perak office,” she said, adding that, it had been decided by the High Court that the accused had intended to cause annoyance, it was clear that the remark was not posted on the private internet chat section for limited viewer but on the online visitor book on the homepage of his Royal Highness.
“It gave a great impact like involving online visitors and it has to be considered. The accused also failed to show a special mitigating factor which can be considered, nonetheless I gave some limited consideration to the age and the personal circumstances of the accused and also the offence was committed in 2009.
Therefore, having considered all the above mentioned factors, the judge fined the accused RM15,000, in default, eight months in jail.
Rutinin had committed the offence at Block A, Lot 4, Kedai Sedco, Kundasang in Ranau at about 6.33pm on February 13, 2009.
The accused, who works as mobile phone repairer, was convicted under Section 233 (1)(9) of the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 (Act 588), which carries a jail sentence of up to one year or a fine not exceeding RM50,000, or both, upon conviction.
The Sessions Court here had on July 12, 2010, acquitted and discharged Rutinin without his defence being called after ruling that the prosecution had failed to establish a case against him.
However, the prosecution had appealed to the High Court against his acquittal. On November 22, 2012, the accused was ordered to enter his defence on the said charge.
The accused had called four witnesses to give their testimonies in court.
Rutinin had paid the fine.