Bung, wife freed of graft charges

KUALA LUMPUR: The High Court here has allowed the revision application made by Kinabatangan MP Datuk Seri Bung Moktar and his wife Datin Seri Zizie Izette Abdul Samad to reverse an order for them to enter their defence in an RM2.8mil corruption case.

Judge Azhar Abdul Hamid said that it was a fit and proper case for the Court to exercise its revisionary power under Section 323 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CPC).

“After examining the records of the proceedings, this court found that there is no evidence that prosecution witnesses (PW) 24 and 25 had given money to Bung Moktar through his wife.

“Therefore, the decision of the Session Court to call for defence was a miscarriage of justice,” he said in his judgement on Thursday (Sept 7).

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Bung and Zizie were calm and smiled upon hearing the verdict by the judge.

On May 3, 2019, Bung Moktar was charged with two charges of accepting bribes of RM2.2mil and RM262,500 as an inducement to obtain Felcra approval to invest RM150mil in Public Mutual unit trusts.

He was alleged to have accepted bribes from Public Mutual Berhad’s investment agent Madhi Abdul Hamid (PW24) through Zizie Izette at Public Bank’s Taman Melawati Branch here between 12.30pm and 5pm on June 12, 2015.

Bung Moktar was also charged with receiving RM337,500 in cash from Unit Amanah consultant, Norhaili Ahmad Mokhtar (PW25), under the name of Zizie Izette for the same reason and place on June 19, 2015.

Zizie Izette, meanwhile, faced three charges of abetting her husband over the matter at the same place, date and time.

The sessions court had earlier ordered the Sabah Umno chief and Zizie Iztte to enter their defence for the corruption charges.

The couple then filed the revision application to challenge the Sessions Court’s decision ordering them to enter a defence.

On July 7, the Court of Appeal remitted back the revision applications filed by the duo to the High Court for the merits of the applications to be heard.

Earlier on Thursday (Sept 5), Bung’s lawyer M. Athimulan said that the Sessions Court judge Rozina Ayob’s decision had gone against established law.

“Her findings are perverse as they are not supported by legal principles,” the lawyer told judge Azhar during submissions in the revision proceedings application on Thursday.

However, Deputy Public Prosecutor Law Chin How argued that Rozila’s ruling was not tainted with illegality, impropriety or incorrectness to allow for the revision.

“The prima facie ruling is not something rare and exceptional. It happens every day in the lower courts. So, both accused did not suffer a miscarriage of justice as alleged,” he argued.

Upon the decision by judge Azhar later on Thursday, Law said he would obtain instructions from his superiors on whether the prosecution would file an appeal.