SINGAPORE — When his colleague asked him to check on police operations, a former full-time national serviceman posted to the Special Operations Command's (SOC) operations room replied with a screenshot of confidential first information reports.

The screenshot ended up in the hands of a drug abuser, who shared it with his friends. Among them was a 32-year-old woman, who was arrested the next day for allegedly taking a controlled drug.

For his actions, Muhammad Alif Muhammad Jamil was sentenced to 15 months’ probation on Monday (Jan 7). The 21-year-old student was also ordered to complete 150 hours of community service.

Alif held the rank of special constable corporal when he committed his offences, which included posting explicit videos that others had sent him on the micro-blogging platform Tumblr.

He pleaded guilty in October last year to one charge of wrongful communication of information under the Official Secrets Act, and five other counts of transmitting obscene videos. Eight other similar charges were taken into consideration for sentencing.

TOOK PHOTO OF POLICE OPS INFO

The court heard then that on Oct 4, 2016, Alif was on duty as an operator in the SOC’s operations room. His friend and colleague, Mohd Firdaus Abdullah, was also on duty as a sentry there.

When Alif went for a smoke break, Firdaus sent him a Whatsapp message asking him to “check for police operations”.

As Firdaus did not specify what he wanted, Alif took a screenshot with his mobile phone of the police Cubicon system, after setting a filter for “Ops/Event”. He was only supposed to access the system — which monitors “live” incidents — when the Police Operations Call Centre called to activate SOC troops.

Without asking Firdaus why he wanted the information, Alif forwarded the photo to him. It showed a list of first information reports made that day, as well as their locations and timings.

Firdaus then forwarded the screenshot to his sister’s boyfriend, who forwarded it to a drug abuser, who then shared it with his friends with the message, “Stop everything tonite full ops”.

The next day, Central Narcotics Bureau officers arrested one of the drug abuser’s friends for having consumed a controlled drug. During investigations, an officer discovered the screenshot in her mobile phone.

ASKED OTHERS TO SUBMIT OBSCENE VIDEOS TO POST ON BLOG

Separately, Alif also ran a Tumblr blog under the username “makkaux666”. He invited others to send him lewd videos of local content so he could post them online.

On one occasion in April 2016, a 26-year-old Singaporean man, whose relationship with his ex-girlfriend had not ended well, sent Alif an obscene video of her to upload on the blog. The man was jailed for three weeks in 2017 for doing so.

He also asked Alif to make the video go viral. Alif posted the video on the same day.

About three days later, the woman discovered it and lodged a police report. The man then told Alif to delete the video, which he did.

Investigations revealed that several other people sent obscene videos to Alif, who posted them on his Tumblr blog. Their identities could not be established.

He deleted his account along with the videos after being contacted by the police. Tumblr banned all adult content from its platform from Dec 17 last year.

Firdaus was sentenced to six years and two months’ jail, as well as five strokes of the cane, last year. The 21-year-old was convicted of harbouring an offender, desertion and consuming and possessing methamphetamine.