Kota Kinabalu: A 59-year-old Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) professor was discharged and acquitted by the Sessions Court on Friday of 21 counts of submitting false claims amounting to RM66,190 without his defence being called.
Judge Jason Juga ruled at the close of the prosecution’s case that the prosecution had failed to establish a prima facie case against Prof Dr Charles Santhanaraju Vairappan, who was attached to the Institute for Tropical Biology and Conservation.
Charles had been accused of submitting official receipts containing false details regarding diving activities, boat charters, and van transport between May 2014 and April 2017 to the university’s bursar department.
In his ruling, the judge held that doubts in the evidence presented by the prosecution—which called 26 witnesses—rendered the charges unproven under Section 18 of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) Act 2009.
Following the acquittal, the court ordered Charles’s bail deposit refunded and his impounded passport returned.
