Muhammad Sadiq Syed Kadir is a bad, angry man. He’s a racist, has anger management issues and is a convicted murderer.
During his many, many criminal endeavors, he’s been caught endangering other motorists, hurling racial slurs at another driver for an accident he cause and worse of all, causing the death of an innocent elderly woman who was crossing the road at a pedestrian crossing.
All that is fact that’s been presented in a court of law.
For all the damage and hurt he’s caused, what did he get?
12 weeks jail time, a 5 year driving ban and SG$1000 fine.
Let that sink in for a moment.
How is that justice?
Overlooking the road rage incidents, the guy killed somebody with his reckless driving. How would you feel if you were his victim or worse, was a relative of the person he murdered?
On top of that, he’s a racist. You can claim that he said those things in anger but I don’t buy it. You don’t say things like that if you’re not thinking it inside.
Here we are wanting to set a precedent for tough sentencing on racists yet this guy gets off with just a slap on the wrist; a driving ban (not even a permanent one!), paltry jail time and a fine. He didn’t even get the cane.
At the very least his inability to process his rage should’ve earned him some form of counselling at IMH.
Nope…all he got was the punishment I mentioned.
Why?
Why wasn’t the book thrown at him for his repeated and multiple violations of the law? He blatantly committed a crime while he was on bail and that’s still not reason enough? Road raging is bad enough, but he’s also responsible for causing the death of a woman and being a racist.
How are we supposed to deter criminals when the punishment for severe crimes is so negligible?
Now, I’m not the judge in overseeing in this case. He knows more about the legal system than I do and that’s not a matter of debate. His sentencing is probably taking into account multiple other factors that we’re not privy to.
That still doesn’t detract from how it looks to your average Singaporean. Remember, the reasons for the sentence could be the most noble but optics is still king. To us, it looks like Muhammad Sadiq Syed Kadir is getting off with a lighter sentence than he deserved.
Hopefully, Beow Tan and Tan Boon Lee don’t squirm off the hook this easy.