THE STAR – More than 700,000 signatures have been added to online petitions on behalf of Sam Ke Ting, who was sentenced to six years in prison over the 2017 deaths of eight teenagers on “basikal lajak”.
The 27-year-old clerk was sent straight to prison on Wednesday when the Johor Baru High Court overturned two previous Magistrate’s Court acquittals. The verdict saw four petitions launched on Change.org, two of them each passing the 300,000 signature mark each as at 1pm yesterday. If a petition reaches 500,000 signatures, it is considered a “top signed petition” on the website.
Muhammad Affin, who created one petition which had over 330,000 signatures at the press time, said in his description of the post that despite the bitterness over the loss of lives, justice must be upheld.
“No one wants an accident to happen, even more if it involves losing young souls.
“There is no denying there will be emotions attached to this case, but justice needs to be upheld.
“The truth and facts cannot be ignored.
“The tragic incident happened on the road after 3am.
“Those roads are for cars not for (minors on) modified bicycles.
“It was proven that she was driving within the speed limit during the incident,” he said in his post with supporting articles.
He added that the modified bicycles were not allowed and since Sam was acquitted of the charges twice it did not make sense to overturn the decision.
“Despite the loss of life being tragic, we must not victimise another,” he said.
Another petition which garnered over 340,000 signatures as at 1pm yesterday was created by a user named Wan Junaida with the hashtag #FreeSamKeTing.
Wan Junaida said Sam was earlier freed from the charge of reckless driving with the magistrate noting that she was not under the influence of alcohol, was not using her phone and had her seatbelt on while driving.
