Defence says office where Hamzah’s ex-aide allegedly received RM350,000 vacant

 Company managing director questioned over payments at Yayasan Tanah Aku, Publika, in December 2020.

Sayed Amir Muzzakkir Al Sayed Mohamad, a former aide to then home minister Hamzah Zainudin, was charged on May 23, 2024 with receiving RM350,000 in bribes as an inducement for helping a company secure the RMPNet tender for the police force. (Bernama pic)

KUALA LUMPUR:

The defence of the political secretary to a former home minister today argued that the Yayasan Tanah Aku office at Publika, where a prosecution witness claimed to have handed RM350,000 in cash to the accused in December 2020, was not in operation at the time.

Counsel Yaacob Sam, representing Sayed Amir Muzzakkir Al Sayed Mohamad, questioned Nexuscorpgroup Sdn Bhd (NXG) managing director Wan Azhar Yusof on his witness statement.

Wan Azhar had testified that he handed RM100,000 and RM250,000 to Sayed on Dec 4 and Dec 16, 2020, respectively, at the latter’s office at Yayasan Tanah Aku.

During cross-examination, Yaacob put it to Wan Azhar that the premises where he allegedly handed over the money on those dates were vacant throughout 2020.

Wan Azhar disagreed.

Yaacob: From the testimony of the parcel’s owner, he said that before Jan 1, 2021, those units, along with the unit next door, were used by a law firm and that it had vacated the premises by the end of 2019. No office occupied those parcels after that until Jan 1, 2021. Do you agree?

Wan Azhar: I only went to the premises on Dec 4 and Dec 16 (2020). I only know that it was in operation on those two dates. I don’t know about the other dates.

Asked how he had led the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission to the office during its investigation, Wan Azhar said he met an MACC officer known as Rahim at Publika and showed him the purported office at Block B.

However, Wan Azhar said he only remembered that they went there during a weekend but could not recall the exact date.

Asked what he saw when he arrived, the witness said the office was there but closed, and he did not notice any signboard outside the office.

He also could not remember whether the MACC officer had taken photographs of the premises.

Sayed, a former aide to then home minister Hamzah Zainudin, was charged on May 23, 2024, with two counts of receiving RM350,000 in bribes from Wan Azhar as an inducement for helping NXG secure the RMPNet tender for the police force, worth RM381,112,042.44.

The offences were allegedly committed at the Yayasan Tanah Aku office in Solaris Dutamas at 4pm on Dec 4, 2020, and at 3.30pm on Dec 16, 2020.

He was also charged with soliciting RM350,000 in cash from Wan Azhar as an inducement for the same purpose at NXG’s office in the Section 7 industrial area in Shah Alam, Selangor, in early December 2020.

Deputy public prosecutor Hazel Tan told sessions court judge Rosli Ahmad that she would re-examine the witness tomorrow.  - FMT