A witness in the corruption trial of  former Immigration director-general Wahid Md Don today claimed that a brother-in-law of a former home minister had received money from him to expedite approval of calling visas for foreign workers.

Burugabudeen Mohamed Ismail, 50, said the payments were made in cash and deposited into the account of the man known as Syed Abdullah in 2008, according to a Bernama report.

"I had dealings with him. The payments to Syed Abdullah ranged from RM180 to RM280," he said during cross-examination by lawyer V Sithambaram, who is acting for Wahid.

Asked how many workers he was able to obtain approvals for with Syed Abdullah, Burugabudeen said: “Around 200, because the time we knew each was very short."

    

On Aug 19 last year, Wahid, 56, is alleged to have received RM60,000 from businessman Low Chang Hian to speed up the approval of visas for 4,337 Bangladeshi workers.

Wahid is alleged to have committed this at his house on Jalan Lembah Ledang, Jalan Duta, on the evening of July 10, 2008.

'Political fund'

Earlier, Burugabudeen, a broker, had said the calling visa dealings were done before June 12, 2008, and that the payments ranging from RM180 to RM280 were for Syed Abdullah as ‘service tax’.

    

Asked if Syed Abdullah had told him if the money was for a political fund, Burugabudeen said: "Not directly, but he did say that others would be receiving cuts."

    

During the proceedings, Burugabudeen admitted that he had been detained by Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA) officers while dealing with the complainant, Mohamad Hasnan Hassan, regarding the matter of calling visas.

He was subsequently released after being remanded for five days on suspicion of corruption.

    

Detained along with him was his friend Abdul Jabbar Abdullah, 49, also a broker, and Abdul Jabbar's wife, Rusalwati Husin, 31.

In his dealings together with Mohamad, he told the court that a charge of RM350 was imposed to process the visas and of the amount.

RM50 was set aside for a political fund, said Burugabudeen, but did not know who was involved.

Transferred pending case disposal     

Burugabudeen also said that while under ACA detention, he was asked about the immigration and home ministry officers he dealt with to process the visas.

He was also asked if there was a third party involved besides officials from the two entities or whether he had hacked into the system used for processing the visas.  

Burugabudeen also told the court that he never had any dealings with Wahid but knew that the latter was the then Immigration director-general.

 

At the start of today's proceedings, Judge Rosbiahanin Arifin allowed an application by Sithambaram to not use certain evidence from Burugabudeen on Abdul Jabbar as Abdul Jabbar had died in May last year.

The grounds for this was that the evidence would be tantamount to hearsay.

    

Deputy public prosecutors Nik Azrin Zairin Nik Abdullah and Ahmad Kamal Ariffin Ismail are appearing for the prosecution.

The hearing was adjourned to March 17.

If convicted, Wahid faces not less than 14 days and not more than 20 years in jail and can be fined up to five times the bribe involved or RM10,000, whichever is higher.

Appointed the immigration director-general on Oct 1, 2006, Wahid was transferred to the Public Service Department pending the disposal of the case.