OFF TO JAIL: Pardan (centre) with Husin (left) and Lajinau (right) leaving the courtroom after the sentencing yesterday.
KOTA KINABALU: The Sessions Court here yesterday sentenced three local men to eight years’ jail each for a joint charge of causing the death of a local youth after they fought over a missing cellphone last year.
Pardan Singh S/O Dial Singh, 41, Husin Dullah, 45, and Lajinau Pangawat, 32, decided to change their pleas of not guilty to one of guilty when the case came up for mention yesterday.
Judge Duncan Sikodol convicted the trio on the charge framed under Section 304 (a) of the Penal Code for committing culpable homicide not amounting to the murder of Jasrin Damat at a car park in front of a coffee shop in Jalan Perpaduan here at 6am on May 30, last year.
The offence is punishable by a maximum jail of 30 years and also liable to a fine, upon conviction.
Deputy public prosecutor Luke Ressa Balang told the court that investigation revealed that before the incident took place the victim had a drinking session with his friends at Sinsuran.
After the drinking session, the victim together with his friends had decided to rest at a compound near Kampung Air here as they had no transport to go back to their homes.
Balang said when the victim woke up in the morning, he found that his handphone was missing prompting him to approach a group of men (the three accused) who were also there to ask whether they had stolen his cellphone, but a quarrel occurred between them instead.
The three accused had beaten the victim and according to a witness one of the accused had struck a belt buckle on the victim’s head, causing him to fall to the ground after which Pardan, Husin and Lajinau fled the scene.
Balang added that based on information gathered from the public the police personnel managed to arrest the three accused and two belts which were believed to have been used as weapons in the case were also seized from them.
Balang said a post-mortem report of the victim showed that he died from ‘traumatic subarachnoid haemorrhage’.
Earlier, counsel Valentino James Tanggar who acted for the three accused pleaded for a lighter custodial sentence to be imposed on each of his clients.
Tanggar submitted that his clients had opted to plead guilty in order to avoid themselves from giving false evidence during the trial.
He also said that before the incident the three accused had consumed a large amount of alcohol and when the incident happened they were still under the influence of alcohol.
Tanggar explained that Pardan is suffering from HIV positive and currently had been separated from the other inmates while Lajinau is a disabled as he had lost his left hand.
In reply, Balang pressed for a deterrent sentence as the trio had committed a serious crime and that one of the accused had used the belt buckle to hit the victim.
Balang urged the court to take into account public interest and the victim’s family in imposing the sentence.
In passing sentence, the court ordered Pardan, Husin and Lajinau to serve their jail sentences from the date of their arrest on May 30, last year.