A former executive with Malaysia’s national upstream company Petronas Carigali on Wednesday was charged with 43 counts of alleged corruption and money laundering.
The charges involve more than 6 million ringgit ($1.36 million) over six years.
Mohd Amal M Razalan pleaded not guilty when the charges were read to him before two separate Sessions Court judges, Rozina Ayob and Azura Alwi, according to Malaysian daily New Straits Times.
At Rozina's court, the father of two claimed trial to 37 charges of receiving kickbacks from two individuals in contravention of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) Act 2009.
The money was claimed to be as an inducement for Amal to assist two companies to secure the provision of civil and structural maintenance services contracts from Petronas Carigali.
According to the first charge, Amal allegedly received 2078 ringgit in bribes in February 2018. The amounts then reportedly increased until he allegedly received a single backhander of more than 800,000 ringgit in May the following year.
Meanwhile, at Azura's court, Amal was charged with six counts of money laundering involving more than 900,000 ringgit between July 2017 and March last year.
These offences under the Anti-Money Laundering, Anti-Terrorism Financing and Proceeds of Unlawful Activities Act 2001, carry a jail term of up to 15 years and fine not less than five times the value of proceeds, or 5 million ringgit, whichever is higher.
Amal has been released on bail although he was ordered to surrender his passport.
The courts have fixed 15 February for the next hearing.
Petronas told Upstream that it would not be commenting on the ongoing court case against its former employee.
The MACC last April detained nine individuals to assist in the investigation of alleged corruption in relation to a project at Petronas Carigali. The commission at the time said that the investigation is the result of “the cooperation and information sharing between the MACC and Petronas to help strengthen the integrity of the government-linked company”.
Most of those arrested were owners and senior officials of contractors and vendors which had worked on projects related to the alleged corruption.
Petronas has been working closely with the MACC since 2012 and the Malaysian energy giant will continue this collaboration to stamp out corruption and misconduct within the group, Upstream understands.
Amal was sacked last year by Petronas during the investigations, reported Malaysian daily The Edge.
Updated after response from Petronas.
