A 26-year-old housewife was sentenced to five months' jail on Friday for providing forged medical certificates (MCs) to drug addicts to cover their absence from urine tests.
Nursusilla Kassim faced four charges of providing or selling forged MCs from Khoo Teck Puat Hospital (KTPH), Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH) and National University Hospital (NUH) to two men between January 10 and 29 in 2016. The documents were sold at S$20 each. According to court documents, Shaik Abood Abdullah, a middleman introduced those two men to her.
Mohammad Rashid Hatnan, one of those men, was supposed to report to a supervision officer at a police station on Jan 4 last year for urine tests. But, he missed the appointment and approached Abood to get a fake MC.
Eventually, Abood linked him up with Nursusilla. She had asked Rashid if he wanted a forged MC from KTPH, TTSH, NUH or Singapore General Hospital. However, Rashid said that he had no preference after which both of them met to complete the transaction.
However, when the forged MC was handed to Rashid's supervision officer, the officer noticed the incorrect information on the MC and Rashid's deed was exposed when the officer cross checked with KTPH.
Nursusilla also handed three forged MCs to another man named Sahlan Moati between January 16 and 29. He missed three urine tests at another police station. Nursusilla pleaded leniency in a letter to the court on Friday and said that she accepted full responsibility for her actions.
Lim Keng Yeow, the District Judge said that Nursusilla committed forgery in a "deliberate and calculated" manner. She got the right templates and designed the documents which were deceptive enough. "The fact that she may not have known exactly how the MC would be used did not reduce her culpability. It was obvious that they would be used for deceit and could be used to facilitate many forms of unlawful conduct," the judge said.
Abood, another accused, was jailed for six months for using a forged document and failing to report for a urine test. He has been in remand since Oct 11 last year. On the other hand, police have already issued an arrest warrant against Sahlan.
