Malaysia: Wildlife smuggler Anson Wong freed

5-year jail sentence by High Court is excessive, says judge
V. Anbalagan New Straits Times 23 Feb 12;

PUTRAJAYA: CONVICTED wildlife smuggler Anson Wong Keng Liang walked out a free man yesterday after serving 17 months and 15 days of his five-year jail sentence imposed by a High Court.

The Court of Appeal yesterday allowed his appeal and ruled that the sentence imposed by the High Court was excessive.

"We understand he was in jail for more than 17 months and hope this will serve the interests of justice," said judge Datuk Low Hop Bing, who led a three-man bench.

Low said the High Court imposed the maximum custodial sentence of five years without taking into account that Wong had pleaded guilty.

"This maximum sentence is usually reserved for special cases," he said, adding that Wong's plea of guilt at the first instance was a mitigating factor.

"The court also provides a discount when a person pleads guilty."

Wong, 52, was charged with exporting without licence 95 boa constrictors. He was at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport when the snakes were found in his suitcase on Aug 26, 2010.

Low said the High Court erroneously considered irrelevant factor that the snakes were "tortured" when kept in a suitcase.

On Sept 6, 2010, the magistrate's court sentenced Wong to six months' jail and fined RM190,000 after he pleaded guilty.

On Nov 5, 2010, the High Court imposed a five-year jail term and revoked the fine.

Earlier, lawyer Datuk Seri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, who represented Wong, said Wong was a wildlife trader, but in this case, he did not have a licence to export the snakes.

"It is an offence, but Wong has become a punching bag due to adverse media reports."

Wildlife trader wins appeal to walk free
The Star 23 Feb 12;

PUTRAJAYA: International wildlife trader Anson Wong Keng Liang (pic) was freed after the Court of Appeal here allowed his appeal to reduce his jail sentence for illegally exporting boa constrictor snakes without a permit.

Justice Datuk Wira Low Hop Bing, chairing a three-member panel, reduced Wong’s jail term from five years to 17-and-a-half months.

The panel, also comprising Court of Appeal judges Datuk K.N. Segara and Datuk Azahar Mohamed, held that the 17 months and 15 days’ jail term which Wong had served from Sept 7, 2010, until yesterday served the interests of justice.

The court allowed Wong’s appeal to set aside a Shah Alam High Court’s decision in enhancing his jail term from six months imposed by the magistrate’s court on him to five years’ jail.

“The appellant (Wong) walks out of this court today a free man in view of the custodial sentence he served,” said Justice Low yesterday.

Justice Low said the High Court, in enhancing Wong’s jail term, had erroneously considered certain facts such as the squeezing of the 95 boa constrictor snakes into a small bag, thereby torturing the snakes.

He said the High Court judge had also erroneously considered two venomous rhinoceros viper snakes (found in Wong’s bag) that were not stated in the charge against Wong and the fact that Wong was greedy in profit-making.

Low said the charge against Wong was exporting the 95 boa constrictor snakes without a permit, therefore any other considerations would be outside the ambit of the charge which warranted the Court of Appeal’s intervention.

He said the High Court did not make any reference to Wong’s guilty plea.

“It is trite law that Wong’s plea of guilt is a mitigating factor. It is trite law that the fact Wong was the first offender is another mitigating factor,” he said.

The panel affirmed the High Court’s decision in setting aside the RM190,000 fine imposed by the Sepang Sessions Court as it was beyond the ceiling of RM10,000.

On Jan 24 last year, the 53-year-old trader obtained leave from the Court of Appeal to appeal against the decision of the High Court on Nov 4 last year which had enhanced his jail term from six months to five years.

On Sept 6 last year, the Sepang Magistrate’s Court sentenced Wong to six months’ jail and fined him RM190,000 after the Penangite pleaded guilty to illegally exporting the endangered species without a permit at the KL International Airport (KLIA) in Sepang at 8.50pm on Aug 26 last year.

Wong was at KLIA on transit from Penang to Jakarta when the snakes were found in his suitcase.

The High Court imposed the five-year jail term on Wong after allowing the prosecution’s appeal for a heavier sentence. The court, however, set aside the RM190,000 fine.

Malaysia’s ‘Lizard King’ Wildlife Trafficker Freed From Jail
Jakarta Globe 23 Feb 12;

A Malaysian appeal court on Wednesday freed a wildlife trafficker known as the “lizard king” who had been caught trying to smuggle boa constrictors, overturning a lower court’s sentence.

Anson Wong was arrested in August 2010 at Kuala Lumpur airport as he tried to smuggle 95 of the endangered snakes to neighboring Indonesia.

The Malaysian, who is in his 50s, was sentenced to six months in jail later that year. Prosecutors appealed the verdict at the high court, but it extended the sentence to five years.

But Judge Low Hop Bing, sitting at the Court of Appeal in Putrajaya, the administrative capital south of Kuala Lumpur, overturned the sentence on Wednesday and ordered Wong’s immediate release

“The high court did not make any reference that the appellant had pleaded guilty in the lower court,” Low said.

“[It] also erroneously considered irrelevant factors like that the 95 snakes were kept in a small bag and were being tortured,” he added.

Low said the jail term was thus adjusted to 17-and-a-half months, which Wong had already served.

Wong refused to speak to reporters when leaving the courtroom but his lawyer Shafee Abdullah said he felt vindicated.

“Some have pressured the courts to whack my client so he becomes a whipping boy; this is not fair,” he said.

However, wildlife activists were outraged at the decision.

“Wong cruelly stuffed live animals into a bag for profit and now he’s free to do it again,” Shenaaz Khan, president of the Malaysian Animal Welfare Society, told AFP.

After his arrest in 2010, Malaysia revoked all his wildlife trading permits and ordered the seizure of all his animals, including two tigers and a crocodile.

Despite efforts by Southeast Asian authorities to crack down on animal smuggling, the practice still persists in the region, posing a threat to endangered species, activists say.

Agence France-Presse