SINGAPORE, Oct 4 — A 28-year-old man was sentenced to six months’ jail on Tuesday (Oct 4) for providing false information to the police that his aunt was making a bomb.
Muhammad Fathurrahman Mohd Adzlan submitted the false report through the i-Witness portal because he bore a grudge against the older woman.
He pleaded guilty in a district court to one charge under the United Nations (Anti-terrorism Measures) Regulations of communicating false information to induce others to wrongly believe that a terrorist act was being carried out.
He also admitted to another offence of refusing to provide information to the police in order to gain access to his mobile phone.
His sentence was backdated to July 30 this year when he was remanded in prison.
The court heard that on July 28, Fathurrahman felt unhappy after recalling memories of his late mother’s sister.
No further details were given about the grudge he bore against her.
Fathurrahman then lodged the i-Witness report with his aunt’s first name and a mobile phone number, along with the words “making bomb”.
He also intended to give her home address as the incident location, but ended up randomly providing the address for Taman Jurong Community Club because he could not remember where she lived.
In response to his report, police officers from Jurong West Neighbourhood Police Centre went to the community club to conduct checks and enquiries. No bomb-making equipment was uncovered there.
Fathurrahman was eventually identified and the authorities seized his mobile phone.
When a police officer ordered him to give his username, password or other authentication information required to access the device, he refused to do so despite repeated requests.
Broke the law before
This was not the Singaporean man’s first brush with the law, the court further heard.
He was jailed one week in 2018 for harassment offences and was most recently sentenced to a 12-month mandatory treatment order this year. However, he breached the order and was re-sentenced to jail time in August.
Mandatory treatment is a community sentencing option offered to offenders suffering from mental conditions that contributed to the offence.
According to court documents, Fathurrahman called the hotline for Pasir Ris Neighbourhood Police Centre last year and said: “All Muslims in Singapore are stupid.”
He claimed to have done this because he was angry with a staff member at a mosque which he had visited.
A few weeks later, he also sent a message to the police through the SG Secure mobile application where he referred to the Singapore Police Force in a vulgar manner.
At the time, an Institute of Mental Health (IMH) psychiatrist diagnosed him with a brief psychotic disorder, opining that there was “at least a partial contributory link” to one of his offences.
The psychiatrist further noted that Fathurrahman could also have been influenced by persecutory delusions of a political nature and was known to have an anti-social personality disorder.
No psychiatric disorder for latest crimes
For his latest offences, the prosecution referred to an IMH report that showed that Fathurrahman was not suffering from any psychiatric disorder at the time of the incident.
Fathurrahman, who was unrepresented, asked District Judge Kessler Soh to reduce his sentence or fine him because he did not want to stay in prison any longer.
“I’m not a gangster, I don’t deal with drugs, I don’t even drink beer... all of that, I never do. I’m just a gardener, I do good things,” he said.
He also spoke about wanting to educate people about nature and having worked at the “airport police division” in the past.
When District Judge Soh told him not to send any more false messages about bombs, he responded that he had read the news about someone “making a nuclear bomb at sea” and grew upset over that.
The judge then arranged for him to speak to a court counsellor and see if he possibly needed to continue psychiatric treatment.
Those convicted of breaching the United Nations (Anti-terrorism Measures) Regulations can be jailed up to 10 years or fined up to S$500,000, or punished with both.
Those who refuse to comply with a police officer’s orders during investigations can be jailed up to six months or fined up to S$5,000, or both.
Last Thursday, an American man was charged in court here after alleging that there was a bomb on a Singapore Airlines flight. — TODAY
