Housewife gets two years jail for possession of 139 Daesh pictures

KUALA LUMPUR: A 27-year-old mother to a eight year-old son, who rarely leaves her house, was jailed two years by a High Court for possession of a mobile phone with 139 images associated with the Daesh militant group.
High Court judge Datuk Azman Abdullah ordered Siti Nor Intan Shafinaz Johari, a housewife, to serve the sentence from the date of her arrest, March 22, this year.
Siti Nor Intan, who was clad in black "purdah", admitted committing the offence at her house at No 104, Kampung Ujung Tanjung, Kuala Perlis at about 8.20am on March 22, this year.
The charge is under Section 130JB(1) (a) of the Penal Code, which carries seven years jail or fine, upon conviction.
Siti Nor Intan's lawyer Farida Mohammad said her client is not someone who likes to go out, let alone going to foreign country. "Even if she wants to go to the town, her husband will have to send her."
She said Siti Nor Intan would not think of going overseas (Syria).
Farida said her client did not know the members in the online group, such as "telegram" and "facebook", in which she had joined. "As Muslim, she was just concerned and sympathetic over the war in Syria," she added.
Farida appealed for leniency, saying her client had admitted to the charge on the first day of the trial.
In his ruling, Azman said he took into consideration that Siti Nor Intan has a young child, who needs to be cared and the accused's health problem which she inherited from her parents.
He said terrorism is new threat to the society and it is subversive and it could create chaos, if it is not curbed, from the beginning.
"A preventive action in the form of court sentence is needed, to ensure the public do not approach the ideology, which is not good for Islam and the society," he said.
Earlier, Deputy Public Prosecutor Mohamad Mustaffa P. Kunyalam sought for a jail sentence and said public interest overrides the accused interest.