MT Orkim Harmony: Eight Indonesian men jailed for robbery

They are Ruslan, 63; Kurniawan, 50; Abner Loit, 29; Jhon Danyel Despol, 39; Anjas, 28; Randy Aditya, 20; Fauji Adha, 28, and Hendry Andaria, 40, all of whom pleaded guilty to the charge.

Judge Salawati Djambar, when handing down the sentence, said she took into consideration all factors, including public interest.

She ordered all the accused to serve the jail sentence from today, with five of them -- Abner, Jhon Danyel, Anjas, Randy, Fauji and Hendry -- to also be given five strokes of the cane each.

However, the other two convicts -- Ruslan and Kurniawan -- were exempted from whipping.

They had committed the offence at 12.4 nautical miles east of Pulau Tokong Yu in waters off Tanjung Sedili at about 9 pm on June 11, 2015.

The charge, under Section 395 of the Penal Code, read together with Section 397 of the same law, provides an imprisonment for up to 20 years and whipping.

According to the facts of the case, the ship, with 22 crew onboard and laden with 5,879 metric tonne of RON95 petrol worth RM11 million, was from the Sungai Udang jetty in Melaka and on its way to Tanjung Gelang Port in Kuantan when it was hijacked.

In mitigation, all the Indonesian men, who were unrepresented, said they had families to support and regretted their action.

However, the prosecution, said the case involved security issues, had received wide media coverage, as well as caused the government to incur cost of almost RM500,000, including to send the ship back to Kuantan Port in Pahang, from Vietnam, after it was found and to extradite the accused from Vietnam to Malaysia.

The prosecution was conducted by six deputy public prosecutors, led by Mohamad Abazafree Mohd Abbas.