KOTA KINABALU, MALAYSIA: Four buffaloes, a pig and RM2,000 (S$824) - this was the fine a court imposed on a man and his wife's colleague for having an illicit affair.

The two were convicted by the Penampang Native Court here on Friday under customary native laws, after the man's wife filed a complaint against them last year.

During the hearing, the woman claimed her husband had become indifferent to her after he enrolled for a degree course at a university here in 2006. She claimed she later found him and her colleague living together in a house in the city, and that when she confronted them there, her husband was clad in shorts while his lover was in a sarong.

The court fined the man RM1,000 and ordered him to pay compensation of a buffalo or RM1,500 to his wife, a pig or RM500 to his two sons and another buffalo or RM1,500 to his Kampung Langkuas folks in Papar.

He was also ordered to pay RM200 in monthly expenses for his two sons by the three-man bench comprising Penampang district officer William Sampil, and native chiefs Johney Molijo and Adrian Sikawah.

The man's lover was fined RM1,000 and ordered to compensate his wife with one buffalo and her village in Keningau district with another buffalo.

Sampil, in delivering the ruling, said although the man and his lover claimed they were "best friends" in their defence, the court found strong evidence of their intimate affair.

-The Star/Asia News Network