Life as prostitute ends for teen

She is only 17 but has a bank balance of over RM80,000 ($34,450).

The secret as to how the teenager came to own so much cash came to light after she was hospitalised in Kuala Lumpur.

The first bombshell she dropped would have caused concern to any parent - her vagina was injured.

The second revelation: She sustained the injury while providing sexual services to a man from the Middle East.

Her third shocking confession was the money in her bank account. She had earned that by selling her body.

The teenager who hails from Terengganu had been offering sexual services in Kuala Lumpur since 2006, reported Harian Metro.

According to the tabloid, the girl charged between RM 2,000 and RM4,000 for her sexual services.

A source at her school told the newspaper that the revelations were shocking and only then some in the school understood why she made almost weekly trips to Kuala Lumpur.

Her double life was exposed when she didn’t turn up in school for several days in March. A teacher was asked to go to her house and investigate. (story)

Turtle eggs caught by immigration

An attempt by smugglers to bootleg turtle eggs, medicinal products, and contraband were foiled by the Immigration & Checkpoints Authority and the Singapore Customs at the Marina Wharf last Saturday.

Routine inspection was being performed on the cargo vessel MV Penguin Indoraya II on Saturday afternoon when the officers detected suspected prohibited Indonesian traditional medicine, an assortment of Jamu, amongst declared consignment goods of two consignees.

Another group of officers detected boxes of turtle eggs, while yet another group uncovered four boxes of duty-unpaid cigaretes. (story)

New camera to help police catch auto thieves

The police may soon have a gadget that can quickly detect blacklisted vehicles - like stolen cars or those used in crime getaways.

The technical trial was completed last week on the Mobile Automated Vehicle Screening System (MAVSS), which comprises a car-mounted camera and a laptop computer.

The camera, which sits on the roof of police patrol cars, can scan up to six licence plates of parked or moving vehicles every second and feed the scans into a laptop in the police car. The scans are then compared against a database of stolen or wanted vehicles for matches.

The system, customised from a similar one in use by European crime enforcement agencies, does away with manual screening.

The police said it is not certain when the system will be introduced here. (story)

China launching cyber attacks against India

China’s cyber warfare army is marching on, and India is suffering silently. Over the past one and a half years, officials said, China has mounted almost daily attacks on Indian computer networks, both government and private, showing its intent and capability.

The sustained assault almost coincides with the history of the present political disquiet between the two countries.

According to senior government officials, these attacks are not isolated incidents of something so generic or basic as “hacking” — they are far more sophisticated and complete — and there is a method behind the madness.

Publicly, senior government officials, when questioned, take refuge under the argument that “hacking” is a routine activity and happens from many areas around the world. But privately, they acknowledge that the cyber warfare threat from China is more real than from other countries. (story)

Kidnap scam foiled

Desperately pressing a cellphone to her ear and looking confused, Madam Koh Eng Pien, 73, attracted the attention of the staff at a Maybank branch in Ang Mo Kio last month.

Employees suspected something was amiss when she insisted on transferring $2,000 to a bank account in Malaysia.

‘She was having difficulty writing down the name and account number of the recipient,’ said assistant service manager Mr Alex Wong, 28, recently. ‘I could also hear someone shouting at her through her cellphone.’

She initially claimed the money was for a friend, but later admitted it was ransom for her kidnapped son.

Bank staff told her that it was probably a scam and advised her to call her relatives. When she did, Madam Koh found out that her 40-year-old son, a coffee-shop supervisor, was at work. (story)

DJ murder, judge explains sentence

A high court judge has explained why he jailed a woman who plotted the murder of her husband for only nine years, rather than throw her into prison for life.

Justice Chan Seng Onn said Aniza Essa, 25, was not likely to repeat her offence and, therefore, did not need to be locked up for good.

Prosecutors, who had asked that Aniza be sentenced to life imprisonment, are appealing against the nine-year jail term.

She had pleaded guilty to getting her 16-year-old lover to kill her husband Manap Sarlip outside the couple’s flat.

Justice Chan said the prosecution’s concern that Aniza might do the same again if released from jail was ‘highly speculative’.

Among other things, prosecutors had suggested in their written submissions that if, in the future, she were to enter into a second abusive or difficult marriage, she could fall into depression again and resort to the same violence to solve her problem. (story)

William Ding Chun Fong wins appeal

Former teacher William Ding Chun Fong, 36, on Wednesday won his appeal against conviction for molesting two schoolboys.

Four secondary school students accused Ding of molesting them in separate incidents between 2001 and 2005.

Ding denied the accusations and fought the case in an 80-day trial that spanned nine months.

He was found guilty in March last year by District Judge Jasbendar Kaur on three charges involving two boys and sentenced to a year’s jail. Ding was acquitted of six other charges involving the other two boys.

Ding choked back tears as an appeal judge on Wednesday acquitted him of molesting two schoolboys.

On hearing that he had won his appeal against his conviction last year by a lower court, he first appeared stunned. (story)

“Untouchable” woman dies after refused treatment

An “untouchable” woman who gave birth outside an Indian hospital because doctors would not treat her died Thursday, a day after her baby, officials admitted.

The newborn boy of Maya Devi, 28, died Wednesday due to lack of medical help minutes after being born outside the maternity wing of Kanpur Medical College in northern Uttar Pradesh state.

Devi was only put in intensive care after giving birth but she died of a heart attack early Thursday morning.

Several doctors, including the hospital’s chief medical superintendent, had refused to touch her or provide medical care as she delivered her baby, the Press Trust of India reported. (story)

PM to explain Mas Selamat escape

A full account of how terror fugitive Mas Selamat Kastari escaped is expected on Monday, when Deputy Prime Minister Wong Kan Seng makes a ministerial statement in Parliament.

Mr Wong will likely detail the findings of a Committee of Inquiry on how the JI leader broke out of the Whitley Road Detention Centre on Feb 27, and what has been done to deal with the lapse.

The three-member committee chaired by former High Court Judge Goh Joon Seng was formed last month to investigate the escape.

Mr Wong, who is also Home Affairs Minister, had said last month that committee sittings could not be held in public as the Whitley centre is a ’sensitive installation’. (story)

Couple charged under sedition act

A couple were charged on Tuesday with distributing a seditious publication to two others.

Ong Kian Cheong, 49, and Dorothy Chan Hien Leng, 44, are alleged to have distributed The Little Bride, an evangelistic material, to Sembawang resident Irwan Ariffin last Oct 19.

They are also said to have distributed the same publication to one Madam Farharti Ahmad at her home in Woodlands on March 6 last year .

It is not clear why they face the Sedition Act and the Undesirable Publication Act when the publication is the same.

Ong, who works in a telecommunications company, and his wife, a bank employee, were represented by Mr Selva K. Naidu. (story)