KUALA LUMPUR: A baker who pleaded guilty to committing three robberies involving a total of almost half a million ringgit, caused a stir in the Sessions Court here yesterday when he urged the judge to give him more strokes of the rotan rather than a long jail term.Liew Young Koung, 24, made this plea despite judge Zainal Abidin Kamarudin telling him the caning would cause severe pain.
Liew, who has been held on remand for over 18 months, said he did not want to be jailed any longer because he needed to care for his wife, son and grandmother.
The accused, who was unrepresented, made this plea during mitigation and had also written a letter to the effect to the judge.
In it, he had also asked that should he have to be jailed, to have the sentence carried out at the Sungai Buloh Prison as his brother was also being held there, but Zainal Abidin told him he would have to go to the Kajang Prison because the Sungai Buloh prison was only for remand prisoners.
Zainal Abidin also quipped that the food in the Kajang Prison was more tasty.
On hearing this (food tasty), Liew appeared to perk up and nodded his head as though agreeing with Zainal Abidin on the prison choice.
Zainal Abidin then handed him seven-year jail sentences that were to run from the date of arrest and three strokes of the rotan, for each of the robberies.
For the first charge, Liew was accused of, together with three others who are still at large, robbing a Mini Cooper car valued at RM230,000, cash of RM5,000, jewellery valued at RM50,000, two Blackberry moble phones worth RM5,000, an identity card, driver’s license and an auto-teller machine (ATM) card, altogether having a total value of RM290,000 from a designer, Mariyati Muhamad Hassan, 32.
Liew committed the offence at house No 1 Lorong Limau Manis 3, Bangsar at 5.40pm, Oct 5, 2008.
For the second charge, Liew was accused of, together with two others still at large, robbing a Honda Civic car, a Nokia N82 handphone, a cheque book, keys to a bank, a diary and a bank statement, altogether having a total value of RM110,000, from sales manager Tan Chung Keong, 32. — Bernama