SHAH ALAM: The High Court here today sentenced a former lecturer to 30 years in prison for discharging a firearm during a bank robbery seven years ago.
Last week, Chia Kong Wee pleaded guilty to a charge under Section 3 of the Firearms (Increased Penalties) Act 1971, admitting he fired two shots in a bank at Glenmarie on June 3, 2019.
Judicial commissioner Suriyati Hasimah Mohd Hashim also ordered that Chia be given 12 strokes of the cane.
“This court has taken into consideration the facts of the case, as well as the accused’s two other guilty pleas in other courts,” she said, referencing Chia’s two other cases last year.
In the earlier cases, Chia pleaded guilty to murdering a policeman in 2017, and discharging a firearm by firing a shot at a bank counter’s glass panel during a robbery three years later. He was sentenced to 30 years’ imprisonment for each offence.
All three sentences will run consecutively.
In the case heard today, Chia admitted to monitoring a bank before robbing it on June 3, 2019.
He entered the bank at about 3.50pm wearing a mask and held a security guard at gunpoint before discharging the first gunshot towards the ceiling.
He then ordered the bank’s customers to lie face-down on the floor, and demanded that the officers on duty hand over all the money in their custody.
Chia then fired the second gunshot, also at the ceiling.
The officers, fearing for their lives, handed RM61,000 over to Chia, with another RM76,220 taken from the bank’s cash room. They notified the police of the robbery after Chia left.
Chia was arrested by police three years later.
