Malaysian graft cop faces abuse of power charge: report
Malaysia's commercial crimes police chief is expected to be charged with abuse of power after already facing corruption charges for not declaring shares and property, reports said Monday.
Ramli Yusoff is the most senior officer in the country to be charged for corrupt practices, the Star newspaper said in a front page report.
It said the latest accusations stem from when he was the police commissioner in Sabah. It is alleged he used a police Cessna aircraft to inspect one of his private land projects in the eastern Borneo island state.
Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA) chief Abu Kassim Mohamed confirmed that Ramli, the director of the federal commercial crimes investigation unit, will face the new charges in a Sabah court on Monday, the paper said.
Ramli was charged earlier this month with failing to divulge that his sisters owned two office units allegedly on his behalf. He also faces charges of being a company director while still a senior civil servant, and failing to reveal details of share ownership in a property company.
However, the court allowed him to leave the country in the past two weeks for the Muslim haj pilgrimage to Mecca along with members of the Kelantan royal family. Ramli held a press conference last month denying allegations of impropriety and claimed the ACA had been unfair by leaking to the press information about a probe into him.
It is rare in Malaysia for such a senior official to face corruption and abuse of power charges.
Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi was elected in 2004 by a landslide after an anti-graft campaign, but opposition and anti-corruption watchdogs say progress has been slow.
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