Three family members charged with corruption, money laundering

ALOR STAR: Three members of a family, including a married couple, were charged in the sessions court here today with corruption and money laundering, involving RM11.7 million.
The accused are Immigration officer Mohd Khairi Othman, 38, his wife Noorashikin Azmi, 38, and sister, Huziana Othman, 49.
However, all of them pleaded not guilty to all the charges before judge Azman Abu Hassan.
Mohd Khairi, who was then with the Immigration office in Putrajaya, was charged with two counts of corruption and 18 counts of money laundering, involving a total of RM8.8 million.
On the corruption charges, he was alleged to have received RM100,000 and RM50,000 from two individuals at 11.07 am on July 16, 2015, and 1.18 pm on June 19, 2015, respectively, at Malayan Banking, Taman Ria Jaya, Sungai Petani.
He was alleged to have accepted the money as gratification to expedite the issuing of Expatriate Approval letter for two companies and was charged under Section 17(a) of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) Act 2009.
Bail was set at RM200,000 in one surety for both offences.
Mohd Khairi was also charged with 18 counts of money laundering, involving the transactions of funds totaling RM8.7 million, which was obtained from unlawful activities, at several banks in Sungai Petani, Jitra and Alor Star between Dec 18, 2015, and March 1, 2017.
All the charges were made under Section 4(1)(a) of the Anti-Money Laundering, Anti-Terrorism Financing and Proceeds of Unlawful Activities Act 2001.
Azman set bail at RM1.5 million in one surety for all the charges.
The second accused, Noorashikin, who is a company director, faced five counts of money laundering, involving RM2.4 million which was allegedly proceeds from unlawful activities, through transactions at several banks in Jitra between April 7 and Nov 14, 2016.
She was allowed bail of RM200,000 in one surety.
The other accused, Huziana , a chief nurse at a government hospital here, was charged with abetting her brother (Mohd Khairi) iby accepting RM500,000 , alleged to proceeds from unlawful activities.
The offence was allegedly committed at Bank Rakyat here on June 9, 2016.
The court allowed her bail of RM200,000 in one surety and set Feb 12 for mention.
All the three accused were also allowed to surrender their passports to the court.
Lawyer Ridha Abdah Subri represented Mohd Khairi and Noorashikin, while Huziana was unrepresented.
The prosecution was conducted by deputy public prosecutor from MACC, A. Hafiizh Abu Bakar. – Bernama