Three management members of automotive cooperative claim trial to abuse of funds

0

The three accused being escorted from the Sessions Court after the hearing.

KUCHING: Three top management members of Koperasi Automobil Kuching Sarawak (Kokas) pleaded not guilty in the Sessions Court here today to multiple charges of criminal breach of trust (CBT) involving the abuse of funds of over RM3.4 million.

They are Mohamad Ariffin Han, 47, who was the director of Kokas, its secretary Mohammad Ali Han, 54, and treasurer Nur Najiha Abdullah, 39.

They were charged for abusing the funds channeled by the government to Kokas for them to conduct the Automotive Workshop Modernisation (Atom) Programme and Retail Shop Transformation (Tukar) Programme in Sarawak.

Ali and Najiha pleaded not guilty before two different Sessions Court judges when all the charges were read out by the prosecution.

Ali faces six charges while Nur Najiha faces four and Ariffin, three.

Ali and Najiha pleaded not guilty to the two charges before Judge Marutin Pagan.

Marutin then set Nov 1 as the pre-trial case management date.

For the first charge, they were charged with embezzling RM880,000 between May 20 and July 7, 2015 at a bank in Stutong.

For the second charge, they were charged with embezzling RM82,000 between Feb 15 and May 18, 2017, also at the same premises.

Both were released on bail of RM20,000 with two local sureties with fixed addresses.

In the same court, Ali faces a separate charge involving RM67,552.20.

Ali committed the acts from May 2 to June 17, 2015, at the same place.

Meanwhile, in a separate court, Ali and Ariffin were charged with embezzling RM1,659,024.77.

However, both pleaded not guilty before Judge Dayang Ellyn Narisa Abang Ahmad.

They allegedly committed the offence from August 1, 2012 to February 20, 2013.

In the same court, the three accused face two charges each person.

For the first charge, they were charged with embezzling RM700,000 from March 18 to 19, 2013.

The second charge involved RM13,800 on August 25, 2015.

All these offences were committed at the same bank in Stutong.

Dayang Ellyn set a court bail of RM30,000 along with two local sureties with fixed addresses, and set Nov 1 as the pre-trial case management date.

Ali and Arrifin’s passports were also impounded by the court as they face multiple charges involving a large sum of money.

However, since Nur Najiha is a civil servant still working in the government sector, Dayang did not order her passport to be impounded by the court.

All the accused were charged under Section 409 of the Penal Code read with Section 34 of the same act.

If convicted, they could be sentenced to a minimum of two years and a maximum of 20 years and a fine.

The prosecution is being handled separately by Deputy Public Prosecutor Daniel Ilham Kamaruddin and Nadratun Naim Mohd Saidi.

Ali and Ariffin are represented by lawyers Fadzillah Osman and Osman Ibrahim while Nur Najiha is represented by lawyer Darren Ling.