(Seria, 4th) Bangladeshi man Khairul Bashar was charged with six counts of human trafficking under Section 4 of the 2004 Anti-Trafficking and Smuggling of Persons Order. Yesterday, after pleading guilty in court, he was convicted and sentenced to seven years and six months in prison, fined BND 120,000 (in default, 60 months’ imprisonment), and given 12 strokes of the cane.
According to court records, the defendant admitted that between January 1, 2018 and March 30, 2019, he used deception to recruit six Bangladeshi men, intending to exploit them through forced labor in Brunei. The statutory punishment for this crime is a fine not exceeding BND 1,000,000, imprisonment for not less than four to thirty years, and caning.
High Court Judicial Officer Yang Faisal pointed out during sentencing that the existence of multiple victims aggravated the seriousness of the crime, showing that the defendant’s actions were not isolated incidents but a sustained pattern of exploiting a group of vulnerable men. The court emphasized that the victims suffered obvious pain due to the defendant’s false promises of lucrative job opportunities in Brunei, and that circumstances such as confiscation of passports and forced payment of fees are important aggravating factors in sentencing.
The court further pointed out that human trafficking crimes seriously violate human rights, with victims being entirely controlled by traffickers and reduced to tools of exploitation, losing both physical and psychological freedom. Deputy Public Prosecutors Rozaiyma and Hasiti Siti appeared for the prosecution, while the defendant was represented by Daud Ismail & Company law firm.