SINGAPORE, Jan 26 — After finding out that a fellow policeman had been arrested on suspicion of having committed an offence, a full-time national serviceman gained unauthorised access to the police’s records and obtained a photograph of his colleague in handcuffs.
Amirudin Shah Zainal then took a snapshot of the photograph and sent it to a WhatsApp chat group. He later made a video about it that featured a Hokkien gang chant and posted it on TikTok, just to “make fun” of his colleague.
On Wednesday (Jan 25), the 23-year-old was sentenced to three weeks’ jail after he pleaded guilty to a single charge under the Computer Misuse Act.
The court heard from Deputy Public Prosecutor Samuel Chew that Amirudin was posted to the Public Transport Security Command (TransCom) headquarters on May 23 in 2020. The police told TODAY that Amirudin has since completed his National Service.
In July 2020, Amirudin was granted login access to the police’s record system, Cubicon 2, for official duties. He was also made aware that he was not authorised to access Cubicon 2 for cases to which he was not assigned.
Sometime before Jan 28 in 2021, Amirudin discovered that his teammate had been arrested.
The name of Amirudin’s teammate was not mentioned in court documents and was simply listed as “A1”. There were also no details of the alleged offences.
On Jan 28, Amirudin decided to access A1’s case file on Cubicon 2, where he found a photo of the man, in handcuffs, in a lock-up.
Amirudin then used his mobile phone to snap a picture of the photograph, which he later sent to a WhatsApp chat group on Feb 6.
The members of the chat group included 17 other full-time national service police officers, who were all part of Amirudin’s TransCom team.
On Feb 17, Amirudin and a colleague, Mr Amos Lee Zhen, were at TransCom’s headquarters when Amirudin showed him a TikTok video depicting a tattooed man singing a Hokkien song from the Singapore movie titled 15.
Directed by Singaporean Royston Tan, the 2003 movie is about teenage gangsters in Singapore.
Amirudin then suggested to Mr Lee that they make a TikTok video using A1’s photograph and the song, to which Mr Lee agreed.
Amirudin proceeded to record an eight-second-long video with his TikTok account that featured him and Mr Lee making hand signs while lip-syncing to the song, with A1’s photograph set as the background image.
Both men were in their uniforms at the time.
Amirudin then sent the video to two WhatsApp groups that included his colleagues in February.
The police became aware of the video only on July 30 that year after an anonymous informant made a report.
Amirudin later admitted that he had created the video to make fun of A1.
Investigations also revealed that Amirudin had made unauthorised access to A1’s case file on Cubicon 2 on five occasions between Jan 28 and June 18.
While the police have not yet stated if Mr Lee will face disciplinary action, they told TODAY that they will be starting “internal action” against Amirudin, who held the rank of Special Constable Sergeant at the time of the offences.
The police added that their systems are closely monitored and subjected to regular audits, and any officers found misusing them will be investigated and dealt with severely.
For his offence, Amirudin could have been fined up to S$5,000 or jailed up to two years, or both. — TODAY
