HOME MINISTRY MULLS SPLITTING IMPRISONMENT TIME OF FOREIGNERS

KAJANG (Malaysia), Oct 24 (Bernama) -- The Home Ministry is studying
the possibility of having the imprisonment period of foreigner convicts split, whereby they spend part of their incarceration time here and the balance in their home countries.

Its deputy minister Wan Ahmad Farid Wan Salleh said this would help
reduce costs as the government was incurring RM50,000 (US$13,973) a day in
expenditure for each 2,000 foreign prisoners, which included the cost for food,
clothing and utilities.
This translates to about RM55 (about US$15) per prisoner per
day.
"The proposed system is still at the discussion stage and will be
tabled in the Cabinet to enable the Prisons Act 1995 to be amended and
negotiations with the countries concerned take place," he told reporters after
closing a prisons management course which was attended by 228 participants at
the Prisons Training Institute just outside the capital city Friday.
Wan Ahmad Farid said the system would need the approval of the
countries
involved and that Malaysia would reciprocate the same (share imprisonment time
of Malaysians jailed abroad) to make it successful.
"As an example, if a Malaysian receives a jail sentence in Australia
for eight years and he has been held there for two years, the remaining six
years can be done here," he said, adding that the system would not apply where
the death sentence is imposed.
Asked how many Malaysians were serving time abroad, Wan Ahmad Farad
the
number was in excess of 100.
-- BERNAMA