Ahmad Zakri Raman pleaded guilty under Section 161 of the Penal Code for receiving bribes from 17 transactions worth RM88,000. — iStock.com pic via AFP

KUALA LUMPUR, March 3 — An administrative assistant at the National Registry Department (NRD) in Malacca has been sentenced to a total of 156 years for corruption and hacking when he changed the status of 22 Sulu Filipinos to Malaysians.

However, Ahmad Zakri Raman, 31, will only be spending 10 years behind bars as the Sessions Court ordered the sentences to run concurrently starting from the date of his arrest last September, Malay daily Harian Metro reported today.

According to the report, Ahmad pleaded guilty to 17 counts of accepting bribes amounting to RM88,000, a crime under Section 161 of the Penal Code.

He was also charged with 15 counts of hacking into the NRD system to change the 22 foreigners’ citizenship to Malaysian, an offence under Section 5(1) of the Computer Crimes Act 1997.

“With the accused pleading guilty, it saves the time and cost of the court, but I agree with the deputy public prosecutor that this involves a serious citizenship issue,” Judge Ahmad Sazali Omar was quoted as saying when meting out the sentence.

Ahmad Zakri was reported to have committed the crimes at the Jalan Hang Tuah Urban Transformation Centre in Malacca between March 2014 and April 2016.