Ramli freed of abuse charge

AG fails in appeal against former Sabah police chief

Former Sabah police chief Ramli Yusof is finally free of the abuse of power charge of using a police helicopter for personal gain made four years ago.

The Court of Appeal, sitting in Kota Kinabalu today, unanimously upheld Ramli's acquittal at the High Court and Sessions Court. The decision was made by the Sessions Court without the defence being called.

The decision by the three-member Court of Appeal, led by Justice Sulong Matjeraie, was unanimous.

The other judges were Court of Appeal judge Justice Mohd Apandi Ali and Sabah High Court judge David Wong.

Ramli (right) was charged with allegedly abusing his powers as Sabah police chief for personal financial gain when on June 15, 2007, he used a Royal Malaysian Police Cessna Caravan aircraft to take him and Brig-Gen (Rtd) Mohamad Yasin Yahya on aerial surveillance of two lots in Ulu Tungku, Lahad Datu.

With today's decision, the prosecution and the Attorney-General's Chambers cannot further appeal the case.

Ramli, who is a former Federal Commercial Crime Investigation Department director, was also acquitted by the Kuala Lumpur Sessions Court last year of three charges of failure to declare his assets.

He was also cleared by another KL Sessions Court of a charge of being in breach of laws preventing civil servants from being involved in private businesses.

However, both the Kuala Lumpur cases are still pending appeal by the prosecution at the High Court.

Ramli was today represented by Muhammad Shafee Abdullah while DPP Ahmad Bache acted for the prosecution.

Ramli implicated as RM27 million cop

Ramli is the former senior cop which had been implicated by the Anti-Corruption Agency, and also the Attorney-General's Chambers to allegedly be a RM27 million man.

However, such claims remains unsubstantiated although it was widely reported in the mainstream media.

It is alleged that the move to implicate Ramli was as a result of the commercial crime chief's strong move against loan sharks, a move which may have been found to be unfavourable to former inspector-general of police Musa Hassan.

At one point of time when one of the loan sharks was placed under restricted residence, and a habeas corpus application was filed, the Attorney-General's Chambers did not help in drafting affidavits for the police and former deputy home minister Johari Bahrom.

As a result of this, Ramli had to engage his lawyer friend Rosli Dahlan to draft the affidavits for the two. This was stated in Rosli's civil suit against the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission and 17 others following the lawyer being charged with non-disclosure of assets.

However, Rosli was acquitted by the Kuala Lumpur Sessions Court last December.

In Ramli's matter, Sabah High Court judge Justice Abdul Rahman Sebli had in March last year upheld the acquittal and said the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission's (previously the ACA) case was flawed from the beginning.

In deciding to set Ramli free, Sessions Court judge Supang Lian noted that former IGP Musa, who had given testimony in the case, was an unreliable witness.

“Musa had given evidence which was contrary to the testimony of other senior officers and the court found the IGP's testimony unreliable,” Supang ruled.

Ramli had always maintained his innocence as he claimed to have used the aircraft while on official duty and in full uniform.

He claimed several police officers accompanied him, and that the aerial survey at that time was done to prevent the infiltration of Abu Sayaf militants and illegal immigrants.

Hafiz Yatim