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PETALING JAYA: An animal rights group said it is “unacceptable” for a mental health patient to be jailed after a man who hung his dog from a tree was fined RM40,000 or 12 months in prison yesterday.
Animal rights lawyers said Muhammad Yoges Balaraman, 35, who police say had been receiving treatment for mental health problems for the past three years, should have committed to a mental health care center for treatment. .
The defendant, who was filmed hanging his dog on a tree in Banting on May 6, was brought to serve his 12-month prison sentence in Kajang prison, according to a report.
Yoges, who was not represented, pleaded guilty to causing unnecessary pain or suffering to his dog under Section 29 (1) (e) of the Animal Welfare Act of 2015, an offense punishable by a maximum fine of RM100, 000 or up to three years’ imprisonment.
The Veterinary Services Department prosecuted the case in the Sepang Sessions Court, but neither they nor Banting Hospital were able to confirm the nature of Yoges’ mental health problems.
“The right course of action here would be to send him to commit to a mental health care facility for proper treatment,” said Rajesh Nagarajan, an animal rights lawyer.
Muhammad Rafique Rashid Ali, deputy co-chair of the criminal law committee of the Council of Lawyers, said that in cases where a defendant is suspected of not having a good mentality, the magistrate or judge should determine whether the person has the mental capacity to understand the charge read. out of them.
He said the court was required to send a defendant for a mental evaluation if the police said that he had been receiving mental treatment.
“The assessment is whether at the time of the alleged crime, the defendant had the mental capacity to understand that what he was doing was wrong or a crime,” he said.
However, a psychiatrist said that only a small fraction of the 200 known mental illnesses can be taken into account when reaching a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity.
Philip George, a consultant at Assunta Hospital in Petaling Jaya, said Yoges’ mental illness “did not appear to be serious or was one that would dismiss him from the sentence.”
“He was able to make decisions and plead guilty, so he was in touch with reality,” said George, who also heads the department of psychiatry at the International Medical University.
“But if he suffers from a serious illness, such as being delusional, hearing voices, or thinking that the dog was the devil, he could have been acquitted due to mental illness.”
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