PUTRAJAYA, Sept 2 (Bernama) -- A former managing director of a tourism company has been ordered to serve a five-year jail sentence starting today after the Court of Appeal upheld his conviction on 23 charges related to fraudulent Umrah packages to the holy land of Mecca and pilgrimages to Egypt involving losses of more than RM430,000.
The three-judge Court of Appeal panel consisting of Datuk Azman Abdullah, Datuk Meor Hashimi Abdul Hamid and Dean Wayne Daly unanimously dismissed Misbahalmunir Omar, 60,'s final appeal against the conviction but allowed his appeal against the sentence.
The court reduced the jail sentence from 10 years to five years for each charge faced by the appellant and ordered the prison sentences to run concurrently starting today.
On August 8, 2022, the Sungai Petani Magistrate's Court sentenced Misbahalmunir, who was then the managing director of Raudhah Mawaddah Travel & Tours Sdn Bhd, to 10 years in prison after being found guilty of 23 counts of deceiving Umrah consultant and mutawwif (pilgrim guide), Amzari Halim into depositing money collected from 202 participants totalling RM434,250 for an Umrah group and trip to Egypt.
All the offences were committed at several locations in Kedah, Johor and Selangor between Nov 2, 2015 and Jan 28, 2016, under Section 420 of the Penal Code.
The conviction and sentence were upheld by the Sungai Petani High Court on April 24 2024.
Meor Hashimi who read out the decision today said the appellant's conviction for all 23 charges under Section 420 of the Penal Code was safe and the court upheld the decisions of the Magistrate's Court and the High Court which convicted him of all the charges.
"In our opinion, the magistrate has assessed and considered the credibility of the prosecution witnesses and the documents submitted by the prosecution witnesses. We find that the magistrate has made a correct and well-founded finding that the appellant (Misbahalmunir) deceived the complainant by organising the Kembara Mahabbah even though the appellant knew that his company had been wound up.
"We also find that the prosecution has succeeded in proving the elements of fraud committed by the appellant under Section 420 of the Penal Code, namely by deceiving the complainant into handing over RM434,250 to the appellant," he said.
The judge said the appellant also helped the complainant to find participants for the Kembara Mahabbah and then received payment in the appellant's control account and dishonestly deceived the complainant by issuing an itinerary that had been modified or amended for the purpose of receiving the money given by the complainant and the appellant's actions caused a monetary loss.
"We find that the prosecution has succeeded in proving a prima facie case against the appellant on all charges and agreed with the prosecution's argument that the appellant was not prejudiced or there was a miscarriage of justice," he said.
Meor Hashimi said the court also found that all the charges brought against the appellant were not flawed or defective and that the appellant was not confused by the charges he faced and had put forward his defence earlier during the prosecution case.
"This shows that the appellant understood the charges he faced and therefore, there was no flawed or defective charge that did not contain clear details. In our opinion, the details of the charges against the appellant are clear and complete and comply with the requirements of Sections 152 and 153 of the Criminal Procedure Code," he said.
Based on the facts of the case, Amzari, who is also the complainant and the eighth prosecution witness in the case, was asked by the appellant to deposit money in stages into the bank account provided for the purchase of round-trip tickets to Egypt.
However, the appellant did not inform the complainant that his company had been wound up since Jan 14, 2015 by order of the Alor Setar High Court. Instead, the appellant asked the complainant to deposit the participants' money amounting to RM434,250 into his, his wife's and the company's employees' bank accounts in addition to submitting the itinerary and flight tickets of all the participants scheduled to depart on Jan 29 and 30 2016.
However, after the complainant and participants arrived at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport, they found that all the itineraries and tickets supplied by the accused were invalid and did not exist before lodging a police report.
At today's proceedings, the appellant was represented by lawyer G. Ravishankar while the prosecution was handled by deputy public prosecutor Siti Rafidah Zainuddin.
-- BERNAMA