KUALA LUMPUR - A sales promoter who was sentenced to be caned in court - and by the Sessions Court judge himself - for armed robbery got off easy when a High Court revised the sentence.

Muhammad Syafiq Abd Wahab, 20, was all smiles yesterday when Justice Mohamad Zabidin Mohd Diah sentenced him to only 200 hours of community service after ruling that the sentence of 10 strokes of light caning together with 200 hours of community service meted out by the Sessions Court on June 26 was illegal.

Sessions Court judge Zainal Abidin Kamarudin had then ruled that he would personally cane Syafiq 10 times in the presence of his parent.

Justice Mohamad Zabidin said the Sessions Court judge had erred when he made the order on the youthful offender.

"Combining the whipping with community service was what made the sentence illegal," ruled Justice Mohamad Zabidin, who had called up the case to satisfy himself as to the legality of the sentence imposed.

He said it would have been all right if whipping was the only sentence imposed on Syafiq, so long as the judge did not plan to carry out the caning himself.

"The Sessions Court is empowered to impose such a sentence but the judge is not allowed to carry out the caning. This is for the obvious reason that a judge is not supposed to be an executioner as well," he said.

Justice Mohamad Zabidin also remitted the case back to the Sessions Court judge today on grounds that the community service order was lacking in details.

"The community service order is lacking in particular especially on the type of community service the accused is supposed to carry out. The court should not leave this to the discretion of the welfare department.

"The court must address its mind on what type of community service is appropriate for the offender in this type of case (armed robbery) and specify it in the order," Justice Mohamad Zabidin said.

Earlier, DPP Yaacub Chik and representatives from KL Bar Committee and Bar Council and his lawyers submitted that community service order was appropriate for the accused.

KL Bar's criminal practice committee chairman Datuk N. Sivananthan said 200 hours of community service was considered "fairly on the high side of provision provided by the law" as the maximum for such an order was 240 hours.

Lawyer Nik Mohamed Ikhwan Nik Mahamud said his client had signed an order agreeing to carry out the community service on June 26 and that it was enough to rehabilitate him. -The Star/Asia News Network