She used someone else’s identity — now this Filipino woman is going to jail for five months

KUANTAN — An undocumented Filipino woman was sentenced to five months in prison after pleading guilty in the Magistrate’s Court here on Friday to providing false information when applying to replace a lost identity card.

The sentence imposed on Lorna Adilun, 45, will run from the date of her arrest on Aug 18.

Pahang National Registration Department (NRD) prosecuting officer Fahkrol Anuar Sani handled the prosecution before Magistrate Ellyana Othman.

According to the facts of the case, Lorna, who worked as a shop assistant, went to the NRD counter at the Pahang Urban Transformation Centre (UTC) to apply for a replacement identity card.

She used another woman’s name and claimed the identity card belonged to her.

After completing the application, she was issued a numbered payment receipt and a temporary identification document, known as KPPK11.

However, checks by the NRD Identity Card Division’s Validation Unit found discrepancies between the images recorded in the Automated Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS) and her thumbprint.

The woman, who is from Sulu in the Philippines, was suspected of impersonating the identity card’s rightful owner.

She was arrested when she returned to the Pahang UTC NRD office on Aug 18 to collect the new identity card.

Further verification using the identity card number confirmed that her fingerprints did not match those of the registered owner.

Checks also found that Lorna had not possessed an identity card throughout her stay in Malaysia. Instead, she had been using another person’s identity card, which she claimed to have purchased before it was lost.

The unrepresented accused later admitted that her real name was Lorna Adilun and that she was from Sulu, the Philippines.

She was charged under Regulation 25(1)(b) of the National Registration Regulations 1990 with providing false information concerning a material particular when applying to replace a lost identity card.

The offence carries a maximum prison sentence of three years, a fine of up to RM20,000, or both.