SINGAPORE: Two Central Drugs Bureau (CNB) officers accused of being inside a conspiracy to swap the urine test of a man undergoing a drug test were found responsible by the State Legal courts on Thursday (Sep 15).
Staff Sergeant Abdul Rahman Kadir, 46, and Sergeant Muhammad Zuhairi Zainuri, 34, were each convicted of one depend of intentionally impeding the course of proper rights by engaging in the conspiracy to tamper with Maung Moe Min Oo’s pee sample between Aug 15 and Aug 16, 2018.
A third CNB officer, Staff Sergeant Mohamed Hafiz Lan, who had been part of the conspiracy got pleaded guilty and was handed one-and-a-half year’s jail on Aug a few, 2020. Maung Moe Min Oo’s case is still in its pre-trial conference stage.
Rahman plus Zuhairi had stated trial to the charge but were found guilty on Thursday simply by District Judge Victor Yeo, who found that the prosecution got proven its case beyond a reasonable doubt against both charged persons.
The judge did not find Rahman to become a credible witness and disbelieved his proof that he was not paying attention to Maung Moe Min Oo during the pee test, and had been instead occupied together with his mobile phone.
Against Zuhairi, that had elected to stay silent in his defence, the judge decided with the prosecution that the adverse inference end up being drawn for his “failure to provide evidence for his carry out at the material time” in the face of “overwhelming proof adduced at trial”.
In conclusion submissions, Deputy General public Prosecutors Alan Loh and Thiagesh Sukumaran detailed the occurrence, from when Maung Moe Min Oo was detained from Woodlands Checkpoint with a female companion upon suspicion of eating drugs on August 15, 2018.
Maung Moe Min Oo had known which he would fail the drug test as he had consumed methamphetamine before being jailed.
As an ex-drug offender, he understood that he would be sent to a drug rehabilitation centre (DRC) once again and feared that will his wife might leave him with his two children, based on the prosecution.
In a bid to meddle with the pee test process, Maung Moe Min Oo sought Rahman’s help, as Rahman was in charge of the team dealing with the case. This individual lied to Rahman that he had inhaled secondhand smoke while in the room with somebody smoking methamphetamine.
“The events that occurred thereafter were crystal clear. (Rahman) engaged in a conspiracy theory with (Zuhairi) and (Hafiz) to tamper with Maung’s urine sample, enabling Maung to pass his Immediate Urine Test (IUT) and leave the particular CNB office without any further action taken against him, ” said the prosecution.
“Maung admitted to having taken methamphetamine. If Maung had been correctly handled by the CNB responsibility team, Maung would either have been sent to the DRC if his urine sample was found positive for methamphetamine, or charged designed for failing to provide an urine sample… if he had refused to provide a pee sample to the group for his IUT.
“The conspiracy enabled Maung to escape either outcome. ”
Maung Moe Min Oo’s urine test was negative for illicit drugs and he has been allowed to leave together with his female companion. He or she went to Malaysia.
However , the case unravelled when Maung Moe Min Oo re-entered Singapore on Aug 17, 2018 and was once again detained for suspected drug consumption. He or she told this CNB team that Rahman had helped him pass his IUT test earlier on.