15 months’ jail for inmate who instigated 2 prison officers to get him info on other prisoners

SINGAPORE – A recalcitrant offender currently serving a 15-year jail sentence for a drug-related crime will be spending more time behind bars, after he instigated two prison officers to obtain for him classified information on other prisoners.

Abdul Karim Mohamed Kuppai Khan, 38, who pleaded guilty in May to offences under the Computer Misuse Act and traffic-related offences, was sentenced to 15 months’ jail on June 20.

He will start serving his latest sentence after completing his current one.

Abdul Karim was also disqualified from holding or obtaining all classes of driving licences for 15 years from his release date.

The secret society headman was serving his 15-year sentence at Tanah Merah Prison when he committed the offences linked to then prison officers Muhammad Fattahullah Mohd Nordin and Muhammad Zul Helmy Abdul Latip.

Abdul Karim was housed under the Administrative Segregation Regime (ASR) at the time.

ASR inmates are held in individual cells and have their privileges curtailed.

The prosecution said that such inmates are held for various reasons, including poor conduct and gang-related activities.

On five occasions between January and June 2020, Abdul Karim asked Fattahullah for the location of other inmates.

Fattahullah accessed the Singapore Prison Service’s (SPS) computer system and shared the information with him.

On Oct 13, 2020, Abdul Karim spoke to Helmy, as he wanted to find out some personal information on two other inmates, identified in court documents as V1 and V2.

Helmy retrieved the information from the computer system and shared it with Abdul Karim, who wrote it on a piece of paper.

Deputy Public Prosecutors Claire Poh, Gabriel Lee, Kelvin Chong and Louis Ngia had stated in court documents: “Fattahullah and Helmy acceded to (Abdul Karim’s) requests because they knew the accused was a disruptive inmate.

“They provided the information in the hope that the accused would not create trouble for them in the course of their work.”

Some time in October 2020, Abdul Karim threatened inmate V1 by saying that he knew V1’s home address.

The DPPs told the court: “The accused then accurately recited V1’s residential address to him, which V1 had never provided the accused with, with the intent to cause V1 alarm.

“(The computer-related offences) were only detected when the SPS conducted a check on the accused’s cell, and found a handwritten note containing V1 and V2’s addresses, as well as the contact number of V2’s girlfriend.”

Fattahullah and Helmy, who were charged in November 2021, are no longer prison officers.

Fattahullah, then 38, was sentenced to 10 weeks’ jail In August 2022, while Helmy, then 33, was sentenced to seven weeks’ jail the following month.

Separately, Abdul Karim also committed multiple traffic offences.

He did not have a valid licence when he drove a car along Bukit Batok Road towards Jurong Town Hall Road at around 3am on April 30, 2015.

He was caught after he arrived at a roadblock.

While out on bail, he reoffended by driving another car in the Punggol area at around 9.30pm on Aug 11 that year.

Officers from the Central Narcotics Bureau followed the car, and they arrested Abdul Karim after he alighted at a petrol station in Upper Serangoon Road at around 10pm.