M'sian 'transiting' at Changi Airport for 18 days gets two weeks jail

A jobless Malaysian man was handed a two-week jail term after he pleaded guilty to three out of 31 charges of forging mobile boarding passes to enter various lounges at Changi Airport.

The Straits Times reported today that Raejali Buntut who overslept at a Changi Airport lounge and missed his AirAsia flight back to Kuala Lumpur had decided to stay in the departure transit area on Aug 21.

For almost three weeks - 18 days until last Wednesday - he remained in transit by using 31 forged mobile boarding passes to enter various lounges in the airport's terminals, said the report.

The report said a district court heard Friday that Raejali, 33, had checked in at close to midnight and went to the Plaza Premium Lounge in Terminal 1 (T1), using his boarding pass and his Priority Pass issued by Citibank.

The court was not told why Raejali, a former business development manager with Royale Consultant Management in Singapore, wanted to stay at the airport.

The report said since his boarding pass was no longer valid, he decided to forge boarding passes by downloading images of mobile boarding passes issued by two airlines - Cathay Pacific and Singapore Airlines - from the Internet, and used an image editing software on his laptop to alter them.

Raejali inserted his name, a false flight number and a false destination on the fake mobile boarding passes, before sending them to his phone.

The report said he had gone into the Plaza Premium Lounge, the Sats Premier Lounge and the Dnata Lounge at T1 before going to the Ambassador Transit Lounge at T3.

Last Tuesday, the report said, a staff member at the Dnata Lounge called police when she suspected Raejali's misdeeds as he attempted to enter the same lounge for the fourth time.

It was reported that Raejali's sentence was backdated to the date of his remand last Friday and he could have been jailed for four years and fined per charge. -- BERNAMA