SINGAPORE, July 12 — Metro Holdings scion Ong Jenn was sentenced to two years’ jail this morning for two counts of attempted possession of cannabis.

Ong, the grandson of department store Metro Holding’s founder Ong Tjoe Kim, was acquitted of two drug trafficking offences after a three-day trial but two reduced charges of attempted possession of drugs were pressed against him.

He pleaded guilty to the new charges last month.

In sentencing him this morning, District Judge Jasvender Kaur found the defence’s argument for a sentence of probation “wholly inappropriate”, given that Ong, 41, had a “long-standing drug addiction” after picking up the habit while he was studying abroad. 

Ong was on his way to collect some 92.68g of cannabis and 385.1g of cannabis mixture from his dealer when he was arrested on October 31, 2014.

Prosecutors had pressed for three years’ jail, noting that Ong had admitted to abusing drugs daily for years.

They also noted that Ong had no qualms sharing as well as selling drugs he bought with his friends.

Defence lawyer Tan Chee Meng, however, argued that his client deserved a lower sentence for cooperating with the authorities since the start of investigations, as well as his initiative to embark on “self-rehabilitation” from his drug problem.

Tan suggested that Ong should be sent for supervised probation, which requires the offender to meet regularly with a probation officer for between six months to three years, or, at the most, eight to 12 months’ jail.

While Kaur accepted that Ong had intended to personally consume the cannabis he bought on the day of the offence, she noted that text messages between Ong and his friends showed a “latent risk” of him “obliging friends who ran into difficulty in obtaining their own supply”.

Nonetheless, the judge said factors in Ong’s favour include the fact that the drug transaction that particular day was not initiated by Ong himself, but by his dealer Mohamad Ismail Abdul Majid. She also noted that Ong had pleaded guilty to the amended charges at the earliest opportunity.

Ismail was jailed 22 years and given 18 strokes of the cane in September 2015 after pleading guilty to three of seven drug-related charges.

For attempted possession of drugs, Ong could have been jailed up to 10 years and/or fined S$20,000 (RM622,45) per charge. — TODAY