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Malaysian jailed a year for causing forest fires in Riau

Malaysian jailed a year for causing forest fires in Riau

A Malaysian plantation manager has been found guilty over forest fires in Riau last year which blanketed Malaysia and Singapore in smoke, reports the Jakarta Post today.

Danesuvaran K.R. Singam of plantation company PT ADEI Plantation and Industry was sentenced to a year in jail and the option of paying Rp 2 billion (RM556,000) or serving an additional two months in jail for violating Article 99 (1) of the Environmental Protection and Management Law 2009.

The general manager was sentenced by the Pelalawan District Court in Riau on Tuesday, the paper reported.

The Indonesian daily quoted judge Donovan Pendapotan as saying that "the defendant was negligent in his supervisory role of the estate".

“He should have actively prevented irresponsible parties from slipping into the estate and setting the fires."

The Jakarta Post reported that Danesuvaran was not sent directly to jail after the hearing and that the prosecution would wait for a “final and binding verdict” from the Supreme Court.

Prosecutors would also appeal the sentence, prosecuting officer Banu Laksmana was quoted as saying.

PT ADEI was also found guilty of violating the same offence and has to pay a Rp1.5 billion fine, the court ruled.

The firm is a unit of Malaysian company Kuala Lumpur Kepong Bhd. Alternatively, its director, Tan Kei Yoong, is to be jailed five months.

PT ADEI also has to pay another Rp 15.1 billion for environmental damages caused by the fires.

These fines, however, are deemed “too light” by some and do not serve as a deterrent, the Jakarta Post reported.

The paper quoted the law-enforcement monitoring deputy at the Presidential Working Unit for the Supervision and Management of Development (UKP4), Mas Achmad Santosa as saying that "the judges’ lack of appreciation of the ecological crisis was the reason behind such a light punishment".

"They do not reflect the court’s sense of crisis about the impact of land and forest fires on our environment,” he was reported saying.

But Mas Achmad also praised the court for holding the company and its top officials accountable, as lower-level field operators were usually those apprehended.

The Indonesian Forum for the Environment’s (Walhi) Riau chapter executive director Riko Kurniawan said the court should expedite its deliberations in future.

He said the two cases took some seven months.

Between June and August last year, severe smoke as a result of slash-and-burn fires on plantations in Riau and parts of Kalimantan covered Singapore and parts of Malaysia and Indonesia.

Singapore has passed a law that allows the city state to prosecute local and foreign firms involved in illegal forest burning. – September 12, 2014.