The Star Online spoke to the 25-year-old snake charmer who caught the 6kg king cobra, who said snakes kept captive in cages or aquariums, usually had scars on their mouths, and were clean.
“But the cobra we caught had no scars on its mouth and there was some dirt on its skin. It also had a foul smell,” said Mohamad Izani Ramli, who is now an insurance agent.
Mohamad Izani had caught the reptile with the help of a friend, after a security guard at the Taman Pauh Jaya flats alerted them of the snake slithering along the outer wall of a five-storey block of the low-cost flats.
The snake was put in a gunny sack after being captured and handed to the Wildlife and National Parks Department (Perhilitan).
The report also quoted Penang Perhilitan director Loo Kean Seong as saying that the department’s officers found nothing suspicious in the unit from where the snake was initially reported to have escaped captivity.
“Based on records, no licences have been issued for owners to keep snakes in the area,” he said, adding the snake would be released into the wild.
Fruit seller Abdullah Che Soh, 59, related his encounter with the cobra at his third-floor unit.
He and his wife Ramlah Majid, 56, were lying on their bed in their bedroom when the snake came in through an open window.
It turned back and went out through the same window when the couple started screaming.