Accountant fined RM3,300 for secretly filming male housemate in shower

KUALA LUMPUR: An accountant was fined RM3,300 by the Ampang magistrate’s court today after pleading guilty to secretly recording his male housemate taking a shower last week.

Magistrate Amalina Basirah Md Top ordered Muhammad Fahmi Akmal Zakaria, 30, to serve five months in jail if he failed to pay the fine.

He settled the fine.

Fahmi was charged with outraging the modesty of the 31-year-old housemate by recording a video of him bathing, with the intention to violate decency, at 8.10am at an apartment unit in Taman Ukay Perdana on June 20.

The charge under Section 509 of the Penal Code provides for a maximum five-year jail term or a fine or both upon conviction.

The facts of the case read that the victim was taking a morning shower when he noticed a blinking light on a bathroom rack before discovering a hidden camera device.

Suspecting it was his housemates’ doing, he checked the accused’s laptop and a USB stick and found videos of him bathing in the nude stored on a memory card.

Fahmi was arrested on June 20 and police seized the camera device, a handphone and the laptop.

National Legal Aid Foundation lawyer Mohd Azizi Darus pleaded for leniency as Fahmi supports his family on a RM2,500 monthly pay.

“He claimed it was meant as a joke between him and the housemate,” he said.

However, deputy public prosecutor Norhidayah Abdullah Sani said the offence committed by Fahmi must be taken seriously.

“This is definitely not a joke. If the video is spread, it would have humiliated the victim.

“I ask the court to consider the facts of the case and impose a deterrent sentence to serve as a lesson to the accused and the society,” she said.

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