Driver jailed 57 years for transporting illegals

Driver jailed 57 years for transporting illegals
Monday, 17 December 2007, 08:55am ©The Star (Used by permission)

JITRA: A bus driver from Ipoh was sentenced to more than 57 years' jail for trafficking in 86 illegal immigrants into the country last year.

A magistrate's court here found M. Elangoran, 36, guilty yesterday of transporting the Myanmars on the bus he was driving early this year.

He was sentenced to eight months’ jail for every illegal immigrant he allowed on the bus at the Bukit Kayu Hitam Immigration Complex exit route at 7.30am on Feb 3.

Magistrate Nabisha Ibrahim ordered the 688 months' sentence to be carried out concurrently.
Elangoran’s counsel, S. Kuppusamy told the court he would appeal the decision and asked that the sentence be postponed.

Nabisha allowed the postponement and set bail at RM15,000 in one surety for Elangoran.
She also ordered the bus to be forfeited.

The case was prosecuted by Nar Azaman Ibrahim.

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在我参与的MWG--protection of migrant and refugee有一则这样的消息，和关于这样的消息的回应。

a reply by charles hector

Just recently they said about 500 companies found to have committed offences with regard to migrants, and many were let of with reprimands.

Now, here a poor driver, is sentenced 86 years - what about the owner of the bus? what about the agents who arranged for the transportation to Malaysia, what about the people who received delivery...

TRAFFICKING - was it really? It is very different from the word SMUGGLING. More often than not, people are smuggled over the borders. Trafficking implies that it was done without the consent of the person being brought in. Trafficking implies these persons were akin to slaves. The word "trafficking" have been promoted by the US and we, too sometimes use the wrong words.

From the report, it seems that it was one trip -he picked them up at the Bukit Kayu Hitam Immigration Complex exit >>> therefore the question is where is the "trafficking" or even "smuggling" - all he could have been charged for was possibly harbouring undocumented migrants - but then this was a bus driver (Are we saying that all bus drivers, taxi drivers and train operators have now been placed with the burden of determining the legal status of all their passengers.... let us be reasonable...)

Was it only the DRIVER that they caught? What happened to the REST - noting that they were taken from Bukit Kayu Hitam Immigration Complex.

我其实很可怜这个司机 -- 我们的长途巴士司机，什么时候变得那么厉害？需要检验他载的乘客是否拥有合法的入境证件了？这个司机，因为巴士上拥有很多没有证件的外来移民，被检控，而且需要坐57年的牢？他们这些司机在执行任务的时候，是否都需要确保他们所载的乘客，都有证件？

很疑惑？这些不都是执法单位需要承担的责任吗？如果说他在这移民厅的附近，载了这些乘客，因此需要坐牢。那么移民厅的官员，让那么多没有证件的人安全的过了移民厅审查严厉的关卡，是哪个单位需要负更大的责任呢？应该是移民厅的人，难道不是这样的吗？

Charles说得很好，我们的司法让可怜的司机承担了所有的责任。那么，那些负责他们的交通的代理人（或者说人口贩卖分子？），那些让他们顺利过关卡的移民厅官员？那些和代理人有交易的负责遣送他们到边界的官员们呢？竟然我们的国家对于没有证件的外来移民（媒体称之为非法外劳的人们），那么痛恨到“入骨”，我们不是更应该把这些人都抓起来吗？抓个什么都不知道，只是执行工作的司机，不是很好笑吗？

我们的反贩卖人人口的法令，已经在10月正式成为有约束力的法令。但是到今天，却是什么动静也没有 -- 只是好看的？以便让国际社会认为我们有为此做努力？明年国家的形象可以好一点乎？