PUTRAJAYA: The Court of Appeal upheld the five-year jail sentence on a former National Anti-Drugs Agency assistant officer and his friend who were found guilty on three counts of bribery.
A three-member bench comprising Justices Datuk Kamardin Hashim, Datuk Yaacob Md Sam and P. Ravinthran unanimously dismissed Ezli Efifuddin Chik and Mohd Amzar Hashimi’s appeal for reduction of their jail term.
“We find no merit in the appellants’ appeal against the sentence. The sentence imposed by the Sessions Court was not manifestly excessive,“ said Justice Kamardin who chaired the bench.
The two are to begin their jail sentence from today.
Ezli Efifuddin, 33, former assistant officer at the detection and surveillance unit in the National Anti-Drugs Agency office in Langkawi and Mohd Amzar, 33, an employee with a travel agency were sentenced to five years’ jail on each count and fined a total sum of RM35,000 each after they were found guilty by the Alor Setar Sessions Court in September 2016 for bribery.
The Sessions Court had ordered them to serve their sentences concurrently. Ezli and Mohd Amzar were fined RM15,000 each on the first count, in default a year’s jail, and RM10,000 each, in default a year’s jail, on the second and third charge.
On the first count, Ezli Efifuddin and Mohd Amzar were jointly charged with soliciting RM3,000 from one Mohammed Sharif Abdul Aziz Bhagad in Restoran Lazeez, at Kompleks Kelana Mas, Kuah, Langkawi at 9pm on June 23, 2013, as inducement for them to not take action against Mohammed Sharif who was tested for drugs.
On the second count, they were charged with receiving RM1,200 from one Syed Fakhraymoin Chisty as inducement to not take action against Mohammed Sharif. The offence was committed at 9.10pm at the same place and on the same date.
The two men were also charged with accepting RM1,800 from Mohammed Sharif for the same purpose at Lot 91, 92 and 93, Persiaran Mutiara 2, Kelana Mas Trade and Tourism Centre, Kuah, at 2.40pm on July 2, 2013.
Last year, the High Court dismissed the duo’s appeal against conviction and sentence. The court had granted a stay of execution of their jail sentences pending on appeal to the Court of Appeal.
Their counsel A. Srimurugan informed the court today that they were only pursuing their appeal against the jail sentence which he submitted that the five-year jail term was manifestly excessive as the Sessions Court judge had failed to consider that the amount involved was only RM3,000.
He said his clients had paid the fine.
However, deputy public prosecutor Tengku Intan Suraya Tengku Ismail countered that the five-year jail term commensurate with the offence committed by the two men. — Bernama
