Money ‘mistaken’ for political donations
(New Straits Times) – The three former Pakatan Rakyat politicians in the ongoing corruption trial thought the money they accepted were political donations from a wealthy supporter.
Surjan Singh, counsel for Perak Tengah district councillor Usaili Alias, submitted at the Sessions Court yesterday that his client had accepted money from Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission’s agent provocateur Mohd Imran Abdullah thinking it was contribution for the PR campaign in the Permatang Pauh parliamentary by-election.
“Political donations are common and legal… Usaili accepted the money innocently, acting as the PR campaign director for the by-election at that time,” he said, adding that his client had no inkling that the money offered was an inducement for a development project.
Mohd Roni Rahman, counsel for former state executive councillors Mohd Osman Mohd Jailu (Independent-Changkat Jering) and Jamaluddin Mohd Radzi (Independent-Behrang) also submitted that both his clients were under the impression that Imran was an affluent contractor trying to get into the good books of the then Pakatan state government.
Osman, Jamaluddin and Usaili, together with former Perak Tengah district councillor Zul Hassan and odd-job worker Fairul Azrim, are charged with accepting bribes of between RM400 and RM100,000 and sexual favours from Imran between Aug 6 and Aug 19 two years ago as incentive for Imran to obtain a multi-million ringgit development project in Pusat Bandar Seri Iskandar, about 45km south-west of here.
MACC’s chief prosecutor Datuk Abdul Razak Musa, in his submission, challenged the defence, saying it was obvious from the phone conversation and video recordings that all the accused were well aware that Imran’s offer was an “incentive”.
“Did the accused also accept the sexual favours as a political donation? The series of events from Aug 6 until their arrests on Aug 19 showed that they all knew that they were accepting bribes and were going to use their government positions to help Imran acquire the 45ha development project,” he said.
M. Saravana, counsel for Fairul, pointed out that the video recording of the alleged sexual act between his client and a Chinese national had shown the date as Oct 12, 2006, when the charge sheet recorded the act as having occurred in August two years later.
“As provided under Section 91 and 92 of the Evidence Act, the witnesses cannot contradict, vary, add to, or subtract from the written evidence provided,” he said.
Razak retorted saying that despite the imperfections of the video recordings which prevented certain conversations from being heard, the intent and the actions of the accused receiving the incentives for their gratification were obvious.
“It must be remembered that the entrapment exercises were done in secret and the MACC did not have sufficient equipment to record all the dealings,” he said.
All three counsel said their clients should be acquitted without their defence being called as prosecution had not proved a prima facie case against them.
Judge Azhaniz Teh Azman Teh fixed April 23 for decision.
