KOTA KINABALU: A woman has been jailed for four years for providing false information in acting as guarantor for two children to whom she purportedly “gave birth” just months apart in 1999.
Kartinadari Amai, 56, pleaded guilty to claiming them as her biological children before Tawau Magistrate Don Stiwin Malanjum.
He then sentenced her to two years' jail for each offence, with the sentences to run consecutively.
She was charged with falsely registering as the mother of the two while applying for their identity cards.
The offences were committed at the Tawau National Registration Department office on March 11, 2011 and Nov 16, 2012.
In applying for the identity cards at the time, Kartinadari gave one child's date of birth as March 2, 1999 and the other as May 14 the same year.
She was charged under Regulation 25(1)(b) of the National Registration Regulations 1990 (Amended 2007), which carries a penalty of up to three years in prison, a fine of up to RM20,000, or both, upon conviction.
According to the facts of the case, on Jan 16 this year, the Tawau NRD received a complaint during a system review and discovered that Kartinadari claimed to have given birth to three children in 1999, only a few months apart – one on March 2, another on May 14, and a third on June 8.
Further checks revealed that identity cards had been issued to two of her "children" while the third had not received one yet.
Kartinadari's biological children later confirmed that the three individuals involved were not biological siblings and that they did not know their real parents.
Kartinadari, who was represented by Jhasarry P. Kang from the National Legal Aid Foundation, has 12 children of her own – eight sons and four daughters – from her marriage in 1981.
NRD prosecuting officer Mohd Naser Mohd Nadzeri requested a deterrent sentence, citing the public interest and the serious consequences of Kartinadari's actions.
He argued that her act of guaranteeing identity card applications for two individuals who were not her biological children and were in fact undocumented migrants was a grave offence as it granted them access to benefits reserved for Malaysian citizens, to which they were not entitled.
Despite Kartinadari’s guilty plea, the prosecution insisted that the offence should not be treated lightly, as it undermined the integrity of the legal system and public trust.
"Failure to impose an appropriate punishment would send the wrong message to the community and could encourage others to engage in similar activities," he said.
