The Magistrate’s Court yesterday sentenced a former immigration officer to two years’ imprisonment after she pleaded guilty to four corruption charges involving facilitating the unlawful departure of foreign nationals.
Hajah Nurul Huda @ Hajah Rusiati binti Abdullah, 34, was convicted under Section 6(a) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, Chapter 131, for accepting monetary rewards from an Indonesian national between October 2023 and July 2024.
The payments were made in exchange for bypassing immigration regulations under the Immigration Act, Chapter 17, allowing foreign nationals to exit Brunei Darussalam without the required re-entry permits.
Investigations revealed that the defendant had knowingly accepted BND500 in bribes, both in cash and through bank transfers. The case came to light when Malaysian Immigration authorities at the Miri ICQ detected discrepancies in a foreign national’s travel records and found another individual concealed in a vehicle. This led to a cross-border investigation, subsequently referred to Brunei’s Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB).
During mitigation, the defence urged the court to consider the defendant’s early guilty plea, cooperation during the investigation, and the relatively small sum involved in seeking a lighter sentence. However, the prosecution countered that corruption, regardless of the amount, undermines public trust and weakens governance, especially when committed by enforcement officers.
Senior Magistrate Hajah Azrimah binti Haji Abdul Rahman, in delivering the sentence, emphasised that even minor acts of corruption set a dangerous precedent. “Corruption, however small the amount, is contagious and cannot be taken lightly. It damages the integrity of the country and erodes public trust,” she remarked. The court ordered that sentences for two of the four charges run consecutively, while the rest run concurrently, resulting in a total of two years’ imprisonment.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Nurul Fitri Kiprawi prosecuted the case, while the defendant was represented by Pengiran Khairul Nizam bin Pengiran Haji Mohd Yassin of Messrs Yusof Halim and Partners. – Fadley Faisal
