Man gets jail, cane for cheating in land deal

KOTA KINABALU: A man was convicted by the Magistrate’s Court here yesterday for cheating another man involving RM296,000 over a land deal two years ago.

Magistrate Lovely Natasha Charles sentenced Mohd Zairul Hakim Moktar to three years behind bars plus RM5,000 fine, in default, 12 months’ imprisonment after he pleaded guilty to a charge under Section 420 of the Penal Code.

The indictment carries a jail term of up to 10 years and whipping and also liable to a fine, upon conviction.

Apart from that, the court also ordered the 30-year-old accused to be given two strokes of the cane for deceiving the victim aged 30 by making the victim into believing that he (the accused) was the owner of a piece of land in Sandakan and sold the said land to the victim.

The charge also stated that because of that, the accused had induced the victim to hand over to him (the accused) the said amount of money at an office in Luyang on July 22, 2019.

The facts of the case stated that investigation revealed that during the exchange of land onwership process made on the land, the victim was made to understand that there was a problem regarding the grant of the said land.

The problem was that the first owner of the land had allegedly made a report and complaint that the land was never sold to the accused and the first owner also did not know the accused.

Because of that the exchange of the ownership could not be done due to the report lodged by the first owner of the land.

The victim had then requested from the accused to return his money but as of a police report lodged by the victim against the accused, the victim did not receive any money from the accused and the accused also failed to be contacted.