Two men in Kuching jailed for stealing transformer components

KUCHING (Feb 8): The Magistrate’s Court here today sentenced two men to jail for stealing and voluntarily assisting in disposing of three units of stolen transformer components belonging to an engineering company worth RM5,000.

Sia Ming Kee, 35, and Lawrence Atam Ubong, 26, each pleaded guilty before Magistrate Zubaidah Sharkawi who sentenced them to 14 months’ jail.

Zubaidah also ordered the duo to undergo their jail sentence concurrently starting from today.

For the first charge, they were charged under Section 379 of the Penal Code for committing a theft of three units of the transformers components around 12pm.

The Section, read together with Section 34 of the same Act provides for an imprisonment term for up to seven years, a fine, or both, and liable to fine or whipping for the subsequent offence.

For the second charge, the men were charged under Section 414 of the Penal Code, read together with Section 34 of the same Act for voluntarily assisting in disposing of the three units of stolen transformers components around 2pm.

The Section carries an imprisonment term for up to seven years or a fine.

Both offences were committed in front of a premises belonging to the engineering company in Wassion Avenue at Kuching-Kota Samarahan Expressway here on Feb 4.

Based on the facts of the case, a complainant saw Sia and Lawrence had stolen three units of transformers and took them away in a lorry.

A police report was lodged of the theft, and the men were arrested on Feb 7 around 1.10pm.

Based on the information from the men, the police tracked down the stolen transformer components to a recycling centre.

The police inquired from an employee of the recycling centre about stolen transformer components, and he revealed that the stolen components had been sent to a factory to be melted, and handed over the sales receipts to the police as proof.

Insp Nur Syafiqa Nyaie Ilin prosecuted, while Sia and Lawrence were unrepresented by a counsel.