In case you missed it, the courts has indeed found former Prime Minister Najib Razak guilty, with the Federal Court having ordered Najib to serve his 12 year prison sentence over charges of corruption relating to the SRC International scandal. Being tech-focused people though, it did get us thinking for a bit: What smartphones, or any phones indeed, will Najib be able to use while in prison?
Well, the simple answer is: none of them. As it turns out, smartphones are unsurprisingly considered contraband possessions if you’re serving time. However, it’s not just another illegal item; being caught with one while you’re in jail is actually one of the most serious violations you can commit in a Malaysian prison.
This Cilisos article by a former inmate recounts his time in Sungai Buloh Prison, and is a great read but one section in particular caught our attention. During his time there, they witnessed a raid carried out by members of the Prevention and Control Unit, also known as the Unit Kawalan dan Pencegahan (UKP), in their prison. While they found some drugs and tobacco, it was only when they found some handphones that they allegedly beat the inmates that had kept them.
Another paper by the Judicial and Legal Training Institute of Malaysia corroborates this, noting that smuggled smartphones are considered extremely dangerous by the Prison Department. Often times, prisoners use these smuggled smartphones to make calls to family members of associates and pass on information such as bank account numbers, phone numbers and secret codes. They can then coordinate with corrupt officers to facilitate the smuggling of even more illicit goods into prison.
The aforementioned paper did note though that hiding a phone in one’s rectum is a common way to smuggle them into prisons, and is relatively hard to detect by prison officers. So it seems that, unless Najib plans to um, “exercise” his rectum a little bit, it’s unlikely that Najib will be able to use a smartphone while in prison.
[ SOURCE 2, IMAGE SOURCE 2 ]
