Man Jailed for Helping to Abandon 16 Cats & Selling Contraband Cigarettes on Telegram

2021-03-11 , 1:42 pm

At Goody Feed, the animal of the day (and every week) is always cats. And as such, any sad cat-related news always breaks our heart.

We recall that on 18 Feb, Nur Hajjar Osman, 35, was heavily fined for abandoning 16 cats in Punggol back in 2019.

Accompanying her was Muhammad Haidhar Zulkifli, 33.

And while we looked at Hajjar’s perspective last time, we take a closer look at the latter’s side today.

Man Jailed for Helping Abandon 16 Cats & Selling Contraband Cigarettes on Telegram

On 10 March, Wednesday, Haidhar was fined S$4,000 for helping her abandon the cats.

This was also the same fine that Hajjar received previously.

However, Haidhar tried to tell the court that he would not pay the fine but would serve 10 days of jail instead.

And guess what happened?

He got both.

Besides the animal abandonment, he was also charged under the Customs Act for selling duty-unpaid cigarettes earlier this year.

This earned him two months and one week of jail time.

Here’s roughly how the two carried out their plans.

On 28 Feb, Hajjar asked Haidhar to help release her cats because she couldn’t take care of them anymore.

Though the real mystery you would ask from now till the end of this article is how do you even amass 16 cats in one house?

Then on 1 March 2019, Haidhar went to her HDB and loaded the 16 cats in 5 cages in a lorry that he had borrowed.

He proceeded to drive around the area.

Haidhar later released them near the Sumang Lane HDB block.

The cats were then found by a member of the public on 1 March 2019. The Agri-Food Veterinary Authority of Singapore (AVA) was contacted.

In April 2019, the National Parks Board (NParks) took over AVA’s responsibilities for animals.

But remember, this is just one part of Haidhar’s charges.

To quote a certain Team Rocket, “Prepare for trouble, and make it double.”

On 8 Jan this year, Haidhar bought 10 cartons of contraband cigarettes for $80 each, intending to resell them for profit.

He even advertised them on messaging platform Telegram, arranging to meet a buyer four days later at Block 691 Jurong West Central 1.

Police tracked him down and saw him being suspicious while holding a sling bag.

When checking him, they found the cartons with 160 sticks of Gudang Garam Surya cigarettes.

They promptly arrested him.

In court, an NParks prosecutor said that Haidhar’s actions were unacceptable and there was no reason to abandon a pet.

However, Haidhar asked for leniency.

He said he had a pregnant wife and that his diabetic father was currently not working.

He also told the district judge that he was unrelated to Hajjar and that he was just doing her a favour.

I guess all cats are now going…

Each charge of abandonment could have had him jailed for up to a year or fined up to $10,000 for the first conviction or both.

Featured Image: Facebook (Susan Lee)