FORMER welfare officer Hj Kamis Hj Gadong, 62, accused of misappropriating $2,898 in student allowances over eight years ago, appeared at the Magistrate’s Court yesterday to face his first day of trial.
He has pleaded not guilty to criminal breach of trust involving money that was due to eligible students at Sultan Mohammad Jamalul Alam (SMJA) Secondary School. The alleged crime occurred between September 2001 and June 2002, when Hj Kamis was a welfare officer at the school.
He purportedly forged students’ signatures so he could claim their Student’s Living Support Allowance, a stipend given to eligible students by the Ministry of Education.
A former student at SMJA testified in court yesterday, stating that she did not recognise some of the signatures on her travel allowance claims from 2002.
She said that the signatures did not look like hers because the some of the letters looked different. However, the former student, now 24, said she could not be sure whether or not the signatures were forged as she “may have been in a hurry” when signing the forms.
Hj Kamis is currently out on court bail of $5,000.
If convicted, he faces up to five years in prison with a fine.
He also faces an alternative charge of misappropriating property, which carries a lesser penalty of up to two years in prison with a fine, or both.
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