An 83-year-old man was jailed for two weeks on Tuesday for pretending to be a police officer after he saw two men littering in public. Rahman Marop, who was a former AETOS officer, had resigned three years before the incident took place on Aug 15, 2017.
Rahman saw a 22-year-old man, identified as Suan Cui Fu, throwing his cigarette butt on the ground outside Marsiling MRT station and asked him to show his identity card. The ex-officer used his expired AETOS warrant card to pass himself off as a police officer.
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When Suan handed over his NRIC to Rahman, he took a photo of the card and asked him to pay a fine of S$300 for littering.
Suan told Rahman that he did not have that much money to pay the fine immediately. But, the former officer scared him saying that he would pass his details to the Ministry of Environment and left. Suan became quite suspicious at this and lodged a police complaint.
Channel NewsAsia reported that during sentencing, the court considered a second charge of Rahman pretending to be a police officer to another man he had also seen littering.
Rahman's lawyer Ranadhir Gupta argued in his mitigation plea that when his client saw he two men littering, he was "immediately overcome with his strong sense of duty in keeping Singapore safe".
The lawyer also added that Rahman was blind in the left eye and that his skull was affected after an accident in June 2016.
However, Deputy Public Prosecutor Senthilkumaran Sabapathy countered the argument by saying that he was "not aware of any serious condition of the accused and that in any event that could have contributed to the offences".
When asked for a medical report, Rahman has failed to produce any report in court. But, a medical discharge summary was used to support his claims.
Rahman could have been jailed for up to two years and/or fined for pretending to be a public servant.
