KUCHING: A 23-year-old man, Kuan Boon Lung, was fined RM8,000 by the Sessions Court here for trespassing into Dered Krian National Park in Bau and removing geological rocks in the form of raw gold two years ago.
Kuan pleaded guilty to two charges under the National Parks and Nature Reserves Ordinance 1998. He was charged under Section 26(a) of the ordinance for entering the national park without permission and under Section 26(g) for removing geological rock.
He committed the offenses in 2021, and both offenses carry a fine of up to RM5,000 or a jail term of up to one year, or both. Judge Mohd Taufik Mohd @ Mohd Yusof sentenced Kuan to a fine of RM4,000 in default of three months in jail for each charge.
A team from the Sarawak Forest Corporation (SFC) arrested Kuan during a routine patrol in the national park area and confiscated the materials he was carrying. Kuan failed to produce any permit to enter the national park and take the geological material, which was found to be unprocessed gold geological rocks.
Deputy public prosecutor Roland Felix Hardin prosecuted the case, while the accused was unrepresented by a counsel. In addition, Kuan is currently serving a seven-year prison sentence for causing serious injuries to a man under Section 326 of the Penal Code.
