A former painter has been jailed seven years and fined RM275,000 after a Sessions Court here dismissed his defence that he did not bribe a chief inspector because he could not speak Malay.
Sessions Court judge Rozilah Salleh said Yap Ten Ooi, 47, who asked for a Hokkien-speaking intepreter, had shown many times during the corruption trial that he in fact understood the language.
“When he gave evidence with the help of a Hokkien intepreter, there were moments when he replied even before the intepreter had finished translating the questions from the deputy public prosecutor.
“In my observation, he can communicate in the language,” she said, adding that Yap’s defence had failed to raise any reasonable doubt into the prosecution’s case.
“The defence is an afterthought,” she said, ordering the bribe amount be seized for revenue.
Yap had pleaded not guilty to offering RM54,950 as a bribe to Chief Insp D. M. Suresh, who is from the city contingent’s narcotics crime investigations department, as an inducement to escape from being arrested for drugs possession.
He was said to have committed the offence at a car park in Jalan Kepong about 8.15pm on July 15 last year.
According to court papers, police had seized 67.22g of syabu, 21.67g of heroin and 25.43g of opium that day from the place where Yap was arrested.
Yap is facing a drug trafficking charge and his trial is pending at the High Court here.
In pleading for leniency, Yap’s lawyer Hermes Media Putra Ibrahim said he had to support 11 siblings and that he was suffering from gastric and skin disease.
DPP Mohd Sophian Zakaria said Yap had dared to offer a bribe to a public servant with the presumption that the officer would ignore the law for the sake of huge sum of money.
Reported By The Star
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