SANDAKAN: The State Wildlife department will consider appealing to the court to impose a stiffer penalty against a plantation worker who was jailed for injuring an orangutan.
The male orangutan affectionately called Gedau by his rescuers died at the Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Quarantine and Clinic here on Sunday, about two weeks after it was found with several slash and stab wounds at an oil palm plantation in Beluran on July 13.
State Wildlife director William Baya said the department is now mulling a stiffer penalty against the culprit, Syam Sul, a 38-year-old Indonesian.
Syam was sentenced to 12 months jail by the Magistrate Court here for the offence of hurting a protected animal under section 37 of the Wildlife Conservation Enactment 1997 which provides a penalty of a fine of 20,000 ringgit or imprisonment for two years or both.
“Now since this case has escalated to a killing of a fully protected species and not just injuring it, I have directed my Prosecution Officer to discuss this case with the court to consider appealing for a much heavier punishment to be meted out to the orangutan killer,” he stressed.
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