KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 12 — A Malaysian executive has been sentenced to a year’s jail for his employer, PT ADEI Plantation and Industry’s role in causing the forest fire in Riau last year that choked the region in haze.

According to the Jakarta Post, ADEI general manager Danesuvaran KR Singam was sentenced by the Pelalawan District Court in Riau to a year in prison and the option of paying Rp2 billion (RM 539,290) or serving an additional two months  for violating Article 99 (1) of the 2009 Environmental Protection and Management Law.

“The defendant was negligent in his supervisory role of the estate. He should have actively prevented irresponsible parties from slipping into the estate and setting the fires,” presiding judge Donovan Pendapotan was quoted as saying in the Jakarta Post report.

Danesuvara was given a stay of execution pending appeal.

The court also found the plantation, a unit of Malaysia’s Kuala Lumpur Kepong Berhad, guilty of violating the same article.

The firm was then slapped with a Rp 1.5 billion (RM 404,651) fine that could land director Tan Kei Yoong in jail if not paid in full.

ADEI was also ordered to pay Rp 15.1 billion as reparations for the environmental damage caused by the fires.

Despite the verdict, Mas Achmad Santosa, deputy at the law-enforcement monitoring at Indonesia’s Presidential Working Unit for the Supervision and Management of Development (UKP4) said it was not enough as he sees the sentence was too light due to the judge’s lack of appreciation on the ecological impact of the offence.

“The sentences are too light and fail to provide a deterrent effect. They do not reflect the court’s sense of crisis about the impact of land and forest fires on our environment,” said Mas Achmad and praised the court for taking the company and its officials into account.

The forest fires that occurred from June to August last year enveloped the region in haze, choking Indonesia as well as neighbouring Malaysia and SIngapore in noxious fumes.

In Malaysia, it triggered emergencies in several areas, emptied out schools and filled up hospitals with cases of respiratory ailments.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyo apologised to Indonesia’s neighbours, but not before the countries blamed one another for the annual problem.