KOTA KINABALU: A police inspector convicted of two corruption charges had one of his convictions set aside in the Court of Appeal here today.
Yugeswaran Surinaraina, 34, however, still needs to serve two years imprisonment plus RM10,000 in default two months' jail for the other charge.
This was his final appeal after he lost in his previous bid at the High Court on Oct 15, 2021.
Court of Appeal justices Datuk Ravinthran N. Paramaguru, Datuk Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali, and Datuk Dr Choo Kah Sing unanimously allowed Yugeswaran's appeal and set aside the conviction and sentence on the first charge.
However, the court dismissed Yugeswaran's appeal and affirmed the conviction and sentence on the second charge.
Yugeswaran was found guilty by the Sessions Court on May 14, 2019 on two counts under Section under Section 17(a) of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) Act 2009, which carries a jail term of up to 20 years, and a fine of five times the amount involved, or RM10,000, whichever is higher.
The court imposed two years imprisonment and fined RM10,000 in default four months' jail for each charge. The imprisonment terms are torun concurrently.
The first count stated that Yugeswaran, who was an investigating officer in a cheating case is accused of receiving RM2,000 from a man as an inducement to keep the former's subordinate quiet pertaining to syabu use by his son, who was also being investigated for cheating.
The offence took place on Jan 17, 2016 between 10am and 1am at the Sandakan police headquarters.
On the second count, Yugeswaran had received another bribe of RM2,000 from the man as an inducement to close the cheating case involving his son.
The offence took place between 5pm and 5.20pm on Jan 21, 2016 at a parking lot near a restaurant in Bandar Maju, Sandakan.
Counsel Datuk N. Sivananthan represented the appellant while deputy public prosecutor Zaki Asraf Zubir appeared for the prosecution as respondent.
It was learnt that the appellant had paid the fine.