What’s fair?

Hussaini Abdul Karim
The Malaysian Insider
Dec 24, 2011

DEC 24 – The headline in The Star’s report by Nurbaiti Hamdan, Friday December 23, 2011 read, “Khir Toyo gets 1 year jail for graft”

Former Selangor Mentri Besar Dr Mohd Khir Toyo was found guilty by the High Court here Friday of knowingly purchasing two pieces of land and a bungalow in Section 7 at a much lower price than its original value from Ditamas Sdn Bhd director Shamsuddin Hayroni in 2007.

He was sentenced to one year in jail from Friday and Justice Mohtarudin Baki ordered his land and bungalow be forfeited.

However, the judge granted him a stay of execution of jail time and forfeiture of the properties pending an appeal after his lawyer M. Athimulan made the request.

The lawyer said the appeal would be filed Friday evening.

The properties involved were purchased at RM3.5mil although Ditamas had bought it for RM6.5mil on Dec 23, 2004.

The court found that the defence had failed to raise reasonable doubt in the case.

On Saturday November 12, 2011, The Star also reported that

Man jailed for stealing shampoo

A 31-year-old man was jailed eight months for stealing eight bottles of shampoo worth a total of RM119.56.

Mohamad Fazlee Zainuddin, 31, was charged with committing the offence at a supermarket at Jalan Gambang here on Nov 10.

Magistrate Nurunaim Abdullah sentenced Mohamad Fazlee to eight months jail and fined him RM2,500 in default two months jail after he pleaded guilty.

What is RM119.56 compared to RM6.5mil?

Just look at the sentences, the former gets 12 months jail for a RM6.5 million offence and the latter, eight months jail for a RM119.56 offence. It is grossly unfair!

Khir Toyo should be sentenced to jail for a longer period that is commensurate to the seriousness of the offence that has been proven guilty of committing, regardless of who he was or who he is.

18 Replies to “What’s fair?”

  1. Man stealing RM119.56 gets eight months.
    Toyo stealing RM6.5 million gets 12 months jail.
    Baginda stealing RM500 million gets free and go to Oxford to do his Phd.

    Moral of the day, steal big and you get to rub shoulders with the mamak.

  2. ///Khir Toyo should be sentenced to jail for a longer period that is commensurate to the seriousness of the offence that has been proven guilty of committing, regardless of who he was or who he is.///

    Some people are more equal than others. Since Toyol is among the ruling class, the sentence will have to compare to his peers. There is no capital punishment for corruption in Malaysia. So the highest possible meaningful sentence would not be 100 years or more like Madoff got. Judging by the longevity of those among the corrupt, it might be 100 years natural life. Usually only adults are involved in corruption, and so the most effective term is limited to 80 years. PKFZ involved 12.5 billion ringgit but the root cause was the transaction on PKFZ land valued at 1,000 million Ringgit. The inflated value that cost the state could be 500 million ringgit. Diving 500 million by 80 years, the annual value works out to be 6 million ringgit for a year jail term. Toyol’s case involved transaction amounting to 6 million ringgit. The one year sentence seems to be fair for the powerful.

    That one year sentence is just indicative. Toyol will be acquitted by the Court of Appeal, and the AG would accept the decision.

  3. ///Najib: Spend X’mas to understand M’sians better
    4:05PM Dec 24 | 23
    He calls on Malaysians to spend this Christmas to understand fellow Malaysians better, and appreciate the diversity the country has.
    Jakim probing same-sex marriage
    8:15PM Dec 24 | 7
    It is using various channels in probing into the case of a former medical student from Malaysia who reportedly married an Irish guy in Ireland.///–Malaysiakini

    Najib’s mind is just skin-deep. Malaysians understand one another very well living together 365 days a year. Najib thinks that one needs only to show outward harmony, and so any photo-opportunity would do, and X’mas is one such occasion.

    Jakim has no business dealing with what happen outside Malaysia. If Jakim decides to send their staff overseas for junket, they should not use government funds for the trips.

  4. I think that those who misappropriate the country’s wealth should firstly
    be jailed for the prescribed period.
    Secondly, they must pay back every sen that they have taken, else they can stay in
    jail until they do.
    Thirdly, they should be given have a taste of the cane as well as well.
    Fourthly, all their crimes must be taken into account, not to give them a concurrent
    sentence, but to give them consecutive ones.
    And best of all, the opposition will be given the power to drop into the prison to at any time
    of their choosing to ensure that the convicted person is actually serving prison time.

  5. Somebody very great asked that question too. What’s fair ? Then another somebody great answered. Nothing’s fair. If you take people’s money quietly for whatever dirty reason, you have to give back. You work so hard for your money. You think people did not work equally hard for their money ? If you cannot afford this and that, don’t put on a show and make people believe you are so rich. As long as those powerful people keep the nation’s wealth to themselves, you will only have that much money.

  6. Malaysia’s sentencing system – “The more serious the crime, the more lenient the sentence”! Someone who stole RM20 was sentenced to years in jail but a robber who robbed the rakyat of hundreds of millions was only sentenced to 12 months.

    No wonder a national murderer can go scot free in Malaysia!

  7. Doesn’t the punishment include the requirement of payment of 10 times the amount of corruption?

    Will Toyo’s house been seized before all the valuables are taken away?

    Will the house be put up for lelong?

  8. For a start, a term comparable to that of the late Dato Harun should be the basis, what was his sentence? Is the Court saying that the term should aslo be based on infltion? Then what above the example shown here? Yes, the white collar crooks have been given too much lenient consideration! By right it should be more deterent as educated man should be more responsible than the less educated!

  9. /// Seri Shahrizat Abdul Jalil, the Minister of Women, Family and Community Development has called on all to leave her out of the NFC (National Feedlot Corporation) fiasco as she is only the ‘wife’ of the chief executive of the company.

    She denied having anything to do with the national farming project and that she is not involved both legally and professionally. Since the NFS was brought to light to have wasted public funds, Shahrizat has been embroiled over the issue as her husband and children were managing the project where the opposition had highlighted that the NFC had purchased luxury condominiums among other things.///—Malaysian Insider

    The minister admits that there were a lot of wrongs with the NFC project, but only that she was not directly involved in all the wrong doings. The laws, either with regards to the registry of companies, or with the disbursements and use of funds for government project should deal directly with the CEO of NFC.

    By Khir Toyota standard of jail term, the person quilty of misappropriation of government funds should sbe jailed based on the amount of the money that went astray, rather than the amount of the project. We know now that 12 million RM went to condo in Bangsar, 25 million RM went to condo in Singapore, a million on vehicles and tour. The quilty party should face six years jail, the same term as Anwar Ibrahim who as DPM should have power over the Home Minister and also the police, but was found to have misused power ordering police to investigate matter concerning himself. The judge in Anwar’s case refused to accept that it concerned public interests on which Anwar was trying to protect in requesting police investigtion

  10. I am sure all poor Malaysians don’t mind 1 year jail…out in 7 months..to cheat and have RM24 million.
    The 1 year jail sentence for Khir Toyo sucks.
    Hurun had 6 years cheating RM1 million.
    Under Najib…corruptions is encouraged.

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