KUALA LUMPUR: A former staff of the tobacco company, JT International Tobacco was sentenced to 15 months’ jail and fined RM100,000 by the Sessions Court, here after he was found guilty of receiving a bribe of RM20,000 from a security company manager six years ago.
Judge Rozilah Salleh meted out the sentence on Datuk Dr Ronald Louis Richards, 52, after the defence failed to raise any reasonable doubts at the end of the defence case.
The court also ordered the accused to be jailed 10 months if he failed to pay his fines.
However the court allowed an application by his counsel, Afifuddin Ahmad Hafifi to defer serving the jail term and pay the fines with the surety bond raised from RM15,000 to RM30,000 with one surety.
In making his ruling, Rozilah said the court found the explanation given by the accused was unreasonable and did not raise any doubts.
Rozilah said the court was also satisfied that the RM20,000 that was adduced from the 12th prosecution witness, A Kanapathy was received in the form of a loan was bribery.
Ronald was alleged to have obtained for himself through bribery a CIMB Bank cheque, worth RM20,000, that belonged to Strikeforce Security Sdn Bhd from A Kanapathy.
The cheque was paid to Syarikat Asia Pacific Flight Training for the purpose of financing the accused’s son’s private pilot licence lesson fees.
The cheque was given as a reward to the accused, who was involved in proposing the renewal of contract provided by JT International in Shah Alam for security services.
He was alleged to have committed the offence at RHB Bank Centre, Jalan Tun Razak here on Jun 17 2008 and charged under Section 11 (a) of the Anti-Corruption Act 1997 and liable to be sentenced under Section 16 of the same Act, which carries a maximum jail term of 20 years and fine of RM10,000 or five-fold of the amount of bribery, whichever is higher.
Earlier when pleading for leniency, Afifuddin said his client did not have any previous criminal record and had returned the money to the complainant (Kanapathy), which was acknowledged by the prosecution.
“He is remorseful and promised not to repeat the same mistake besides asking for forgiveness,” he said, adding that the accused, who was jobless since July 2012 needed to support his family, including his 79-year-old mother.
Deputy public prosecutor Zarifah Zulghaffar from the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission urged the court to impose a deterrent sentence as personal factors should not be considered by the court because corruption was a serious offence. — Bernama