JOHOR BAHRU — Six individuals including a woman pleaded not guilty at the Sessions Court here today to a charge of kidnapping a Singaporean man, 32, for the purpose of obtaining a ransom of S$20,000 (RM63,000), earlier this month.
M. Balamurugan, 46, K. Saravanan, 40, P. Sri Devi, 41, G. Puganeswaran, 38, S. Gobinath, 38, and X. Adwin Nicholas, 41, made the plea after the charge was read out before Judge Nor Aziati Jaafar.
According to the charge, they were charged with the joint intent of kidnapping the victim for the purpose of obtaining the ransom in front of a church in Skudai, at about 2 pm, on Aug 8.
The charges were brought under Section 3 of the Kidnapping Act 1961 and read together with Section 34 of the Penal Code, which provides for a prison sentence of up to 40 years and whipping, if convicted.
Deputy Public Prosecutor R. Nevina did not offer bail on the grounds that the offence was serious and non-bailable.
However, lawyer K. Veeranesh, representing Sri Devi, applied for bail on the grounds that his client was unemployed and had children aged between one and 22, while the other accused also applied for bail on the grounds that they had family responsibilities.
The court then allowed all the accused to be bailed at RM50,000 each with two local sureties, in addition to setting conditions so that they would not harass the victim and prosecution witnesses, report to the nearest police station once a month and surrender their international passports to the court if they had any.
