Kota Kinabalu: A 49-year-old Putatan District Council (MDP) Executive Officer won in his appeal against the sentence and conviction on the 14 bribery charges which involved the amount of RM50,500 in 2017 and 2018, when the High Court allowed his appeal on Wednesday.
Judge Datuk Celestina Stuel Galid set aside both the conviction and sentence of Awang Saifudin Jumat who then was freed from the 14 charges.
Awang had appealed against the decision by the Session Court which convicted and found him guilty of the bribery charges.
window.googletag = window.googletag || {cmd: []};googletag.cmd.push(function() {googletag.defineSlot('/22826383987/dailyexpress_inline', [1, 1], 'gpt-passback').addService(googletag.pubads());googletag.enableServices();googletag.display('gpt-passback');});According to counsel Zahir Shah, who represented Awang, the High Court judge stated that the Sessions Court judge had failed to consider the cross-examination of the prosecution’s main witness.
Zahir said the judge stated that during cross-examination, the witness testified that the monies transferred to the Awang’s bank account was not related to the projects awarded to the said company, thereby refuting the elements of the 14 charges.
On May 3, 2024, Awang was convicted and sentenced to one-year imprisonment and fined RM255,000 by the Special Corruption Court here after he was found guilty for 14 counts of receiving bribes.
The court imposed one year imprisonment and a fine of between RM10,000 and RM50,000 for each charge.
The Sessions Court Judge ordered for the jail sentences to be run concurrently from the date of Awang’s conviction but his application to stay execution of the sentence had been granted pending appeal to the High Court.
The charges stated that Awang, as an executive officer, he had accepted RM50,500 from a woman as an inducement to grant her the repair, supply and service work contract for the council from 2016 to 2018.
The said money was deposited into Awang’s bank account between Nov 15, 2017, and Feb 26, 2018, at a Maybank branch in Putatan.
The offence under Section 17(a) of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) Act 2009, which is punishable under Section 24(1) of the same act that provides for a jail term of up to 20 years and a fine five times the bribe amount, upon conviction.
Eighteen prosecution witnesses and three defence witnesses were called during the trial which started in June 2023.
Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) Deputy Public Prosecutor Nurul Izzati Sapifee for the respondent.