Sim (right) leaves the courtroom after sentencing at the Kuching Court Complex today.
KUCHING (July 4): The Sessions Court here today fined a 45-year-old engineer a total of RM25,000 in default 15 months in jail for five charges of sending offensive and obscene short messaging service (SMS) texts to telecommunications company staff in 2019.
Sim Ngee Thiam, 45, pleaded guilty to the five charges before Judge Afidah Abdul Rahman, who imposed a fine of RM5,000 in default three months in prison for each charge.
All the charges were framed under Section 233 (1)(a) of the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 (Act 588), which is punishable under Section 233(3) of the same Act.
The indictment carries a maximum fine of RM50,000, or imprisonment of not more than one year, or both, and a possible fine of RM1,000 for each day the offence continues after conviction.
He committed the offences in 2019 — three times in June, as well as once each in July and December.
Based on the charges, Sim improperly used network facilities by sending offensive communications through SMS from a phone number with the intent to annoy others.
It is learnt that Sim sent several messages containing racist and sexual discourse in Bahasa Sarawak to a few people from a telecommunications communication company in Malaysia.
The cases were handled by Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) prosecuting officer Siti Hajar Sulaiman and prosecuting officer Nur Nazhzilah Mohammad Hashim.
Sim was presented by counsel Hii Yiik Yew.
