Timber tycoon Michael Chia is sentenced a one-year jail term and one stroke of the rotan for a decade-old cheating scandal involving some RM2.5 million. — AFP pic

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 26 ― Sabah timber tycoon Michael Chia Thien Foh was sentenced to a one-year jail term and one stroke of the rotan today after a Sandakan Sessions Court found him guilty in a decade-old cheating scandal involving some RM2.5 million.

Chia ― who has previously been alleged to have close ties to the Sabah administration led by Chief Minister Datuk Seri Musa Aman ― was charged with tricking Datuk Agus Hassan of RM2.5 million in a logging-related matter in 2004 by claiming that it was meant for Umno's political funds.

The court, however, allowed an application by Chia's lawyer Rowiena Rashid to defer the sentence while he files for an appeal at the High Court, the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) said in a statement today.

Chia was charged under Section 420 of the Penal Code, read together with Section 511 of the same law.

The businessman was said to have cheated Syarikat Peluamas Sdn Bhd's Agus into believing that he needed to pay RM3 million in political funds for Sabah Umno as one of the three conditions to obtain a letter for a timber-logging operation in the state's Kalabakan Forest Reserve.

The two other conditions were the surrendering of rights to purchase 100,000 cubic meters of timber to Rakyat Berjaya Sdn Bhd/Innoprise Corporation Sdn Bhd, a subsidiary of state-owned Yayasan Sabah, as well as a RM25 commission per cubic meter for every meter of timber logged by Peluamas in the Gunung Rara Forest Reserve, MACC said.

In her judgment today, Sessions Court judge Elsie Primus said the defence team had failed to raise reasonable doubt in the prosecution's case against Chia.

In her grounds for judgment, Primus noted that the prosecution’s witness had testified that Chia had asked him for money purportedly to fund Umno in order to get the logging document.

According to MACC, the judge noted that the the claim affected Umno's image as the witness also testified that the party did not seek such political funds.