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A SENIOR official at Malaysia’s Department of Environment Malaysia (JAS) has pleaded not guilty in the Sessions Court in Shah Alam to a charge of accepting illicit benefits in connection with the repair of her private residence.
Norhazni Mat Sari, 59, who serves as Deputy Director-General (Development), denied the accusation after it was read before Judge Mohd Nasir Nordin.
She is accused of receiving RM9,110 in the form of home repair payments from a director of a scheduled waste management company, allegedly without providing any consideration in return.
The repairs were carried out at her house in Putra Heights, Subang Jaya.
According to the charge, the payment was made via an online transfer to the account of a construction company at a bank branch in Taman Sentosa, Klang on 25 May 2022.
The offence falls under Section 165 of the Penal Code, which carries a penalty of up to two years’ imprisonment, a fine, or both, upon conviction.
During proceedings, Deputy Public Prosecutor Muaz Ahmad Khairuddin requested that bail of RM25,000, previously set in a separate case at the Kuala Lumpur Sessions Court, be applied to the current charge and that both matters be heard together. Defence counsel Haresh Mahadevan did not object.
The court allowed the existing bail to stand and ordered that the cases be jointly heard at the Sessions Court in Kuala Lumpur on 19 May.
The latest charge follows earlier proceedings in which Norhazni was accused of six additional counts involving RM21,000 allegedly received from the same waste management company.
She had also pleaded not guilty to those charges before Judge Azura Alwi.
Prosecutors allege that the payments, transferred to her child’s bank account in Kuala Lumpur in April 2022, were accepted despite her knowledge that the company’s director had dealings related with her official duties. - April 6, 2026