A crying Margreth raises her hands to express gratitude to God after her acquittal on Tuesday.
KOTA KINABALU (July 18): A 61-year-old former headmistress burst into tears after the Sessions Court here on Tuesday freed her from a charge of using her position to give her son’s company a contract under the Supplementary Food Programme seven years ago.
Judge Jason Juga acquitted and discharged Margreth Francis @ Majidah without calling for her defence.
In his reserved ruling, the judge held that the prosecution had failed to establish a prima facie case against the accused.
Margret was the headmistress of a primary school when she allegedly used her position to appoint the company of her son through an offer letter to supply the food for 2016 at the school on Jan 7, 2016.
The charge against her was under Section 23(1) of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) Act 2009, punishable under Section 24 of the same Act.
The indictment carries a jail term of up to 20 years and a fine of not less than five times the amount of bribe received or RM10,000, whichever is higher, upon conviction.
The prosecution had called 18 witnesses to testify against Margreth who was represented by counsel Roland Cheng. Counsel Dayang Afiqah Mokhtar stood in for Roland.
Meanwhile in the same court here, five civil servants claimed trial to separate charges of making false claims.
Rozidah Samudin, 52, was charged with two counts of submitting a transport company’s receipts when the services were never existed.
She allegedly committed the offences at a government department here on October 2, 2017 and September 5, 2019.
Meanwhile, Myron Masing, 40, and Mohd Effendi Awang Damit, 31, faced the same charge of committing a similar offence on September 8, 2020.
Alif Abdul Fatah, 35, was accused of committing the same offence on August 23, 2019.
Ady Said, 38, was charged with seven counts of making false claims and abetting with Rozidah, Myron, Alif and Mohd Effendi.
On the first count, Ady had allegedly made the false claims on September 8, 2020.
On the second to the sixth charges, he was accused of abetting with Rozidah, Myron, Alif, and Mohd Effendi in making their respective false claims between 2017 and 2020.
The judge fixed August 15 to re-mention all the cases.
The five persons were released on bail of between RM10,000 and RM15,000 with between RM3,000 and RM4,000 deposit and one local surety each.
The court also ordered them to report to the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission’s office once every two months and their passports to be surrendered to the court, pending disposal of their cases.
Rozidah was represented by counsel Mohd Luqman Syazwan Zabidi Md Zain, Alif was represented by counsel Yannik Mohd Anuar and Lim Chun Yuan while the other three accused were unrepresented.