Ex-CCID chief Ramli acquitted yet again

(Malaysiakini) Former commercial crime chief Ramli Yusoff can finally heave a sigh of relief as the Sessions court today dismissed the third and final criminal charge against him.

Judge SM Komathy Suppiah ruled that the prosecution had failed to prove a prima facie case against the ex-top cop on the charge of breaching laws preventing civil servants from being involved in private business.

She said that the evidence presented by the prosecution could not prove that Ramli (right) had in fact taken on the role of director at Kinsajaya Sdn Bhd on May 2, 2006, which she said is the “essential ingredient” of the charge.

She argued further that even if that point could be proven, the prosecution again failed to show that Ramli was engaged in any form of trading while in his alleged capacity as a director of the said company.

The prosecution's submission that Ramli had indeed engaged in trading by virtue of becoming the company's director rang hollow as the definition of trade must consider that it involves at least two parties in a bilateral exchange and is “habitual or a regular cause of conduct”, she said.

“The evidence shows that the defendant was a director of a dormant company... the company had no business, had no partners, so it cannot be said that the defendant had engaged in trade,” Komathy said when delivering her judgment.

'Prosecution helped our case'

During submission, Ramli's counsel Muhammad Shafee Abdullah called into question the prosecution's insistence that the ex-CCID chief had indeed taken on the role of Kinsajaya director on May 2, 2006.

Shafee (left) stressed that while Ramli did sign the agreement to become a director on the company, it was the company's secretary who dated the document which was subsequently rejected by the registrar of companies (ROC) twice.

The letter was only accepted and filed by the ROC in July, two months later.

Shafee also cited Kinsajaya's report and financial statement for the financial year ending June 30, 2006, which was signed by Ramli's sisters Rohmah @ Hasmah Yusoff and Roslina Mohd Yusoff as the only two directors of the company at the time.

“The prosecution agrees with this because this is evidence tendered by the prosecution themselves... so the prosecution has actually helped our case,” he said.

String of court victories

Ramli, a former Sabah chief of police, had earlier scored a string of courtroom victories, turning away charges of abuse of power and failing to declare his assets while serving as director of the Commercial Crime department in Bukit Aman.

In October 2007, he publicly announced that he was the target of “widely sensationalised” reports of a senior police officer being investigated for owning RM27 million in undeclared assets.

Ramli, 57, subsequently faced multiple charges at the Kota Kinabalu and Kuala Lumpur Sessions Courts later that year.

He was however acquitted in 2009 by the Kota Kinabalu Sessions Court of abusing his power as the Bukit Aman CCID director for his pecuniary gain.

The Kuala Lumpur Sessions court meanwhile freed Ramli in March this year from three charges of failing the declare his assets, finding that the MACC-led prosecution could not prove a prima facie case against the former senior police officer.

Throughout the ordeal, Ramli maintained his allegation that the then Anti-Corruption Agency, now known as the Malaysian Anti- Corruption Commission, had mistreated officers in the CCID and that the police had failed to stand by him and his officers over the course of the ACA's investigations.