40-year-old former Aetos auxiliary police officer, Mahadi Muhamad Mukhtar, who was previously sentenced to 16.5 years imprisonment and 18 strokes of the cane for robbing a licensed money lender in Juroing with a loaded gun, had his prison sentence reduced to 14 years on Monday (8 April) following an appeal.
The Court of Appeal took into account the case of Dave Teo, a former NSF who infamously went AWOL with his SAR21 rifle and 5 rounds of live ammunition back in 2007 before being captured at Orchard Cineleisure.
Mahadi’s lawyer, Mark Yeo, had argued that his client was punished twice for possession of his M85 Taurus service revolver because the High Court judge who sentenced him back in 2022 counted his possession of the gun as an aggravating factor for his robbery charge when he was separately being sentenced for carrying the loaded gun.
The court accepted the “overlap” between Mahadi’s two charges, one for his carrying of his service revolver and another one for robbery.
Background
Mahadi owed money to loan sharks, and on 12 April 2021, he executed a plan to rob a licensed moneylender so that he could pay off his financial problems, choosing OT Credit along Jurong Gateway Road as his target because it had been previously robbed and was staffed by women.
He had scouted the location to make sure it was open for business on the day of the robbery before he reported for work to draw his revolver and ammunition.
That afternoon, he entered the shop and passed a note to the shop staff saying that he had a gun in his pocket, writing his demands on the note.
He then made off with about $24,877 in cash which he used to pay off the money that he owed, as well as to help a friend out.
He was then arrested later that night at the Aetos Complex along Corporation Drive before being fired the following day, with investigators recovering about $19,677 of his loot.
He was then charged in court and pleaded guilty on September 2022 to unlawfully carrying a firearm, unlawfully possessing ammunition and robbery.