On Monday afternoon, 23-year-old Muhammad Iskandar Sa'at was brought to court in shackles to face charges of illegally discharging a firearm.

There seems to be a running misconception surrounding this, as we noticed from comments on various news agencies' Facebook posts on the story:

Public perception: There is a chance he might escape the death penalty even if found guilty.

The fact is, as many of us following this story know, he faces the death penalty if found guilty of the offence, under Section 4 (1) of the Firearms Act. There is no more lenient sentence that can be given for this, unfortunately.

We quote Section 4(1) in full:

Any person who uses or attempts to use any arm shall be guilty of an offence and shall on conviction be punished with death.

However, this is just a holding charge.

This is in place because police are legally required to charge a person in court formally within 48 hours of arresting him or her. Based on the facts they had at hand, it would have looked most likely to be the Firearms Act that Muhammad Iskandar should be charged under.

After follow-up investigations, state prosecutors can still apply to level a different charge against him, should they find that this may be warranted. This separate charge could carry a lighter sentence as well.

Top photo from here

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