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SINGAPORE \u2013 A former executive director of a madrasah or Islamic religious school was on Sept 18 sentenced to seven weeks\u2019 jail for pocketing royalties linked to religious textbooks and misusing a computer system.<\/p>\n
Razak Mohamed Lazim pleaded guilty to one count of misappropriating $68,629, and he committed the offence from February 2020.<\/p>\n
He also admitted to a single charge of misusing a computer system linked to the Madrasah Irsyad Zuhri Al-Islamiah in Braddell Road.<\/p>\n
Three other charges of misusing a computer system were considered during his sentencing.<\/p>\n
Deputy Public Prosecutor Bryan Wong also applied for a discharge not amounting to an acquittal for the 59-year-old\u2019s three pending charges, including two counts of cheating. Wong did not reveal the reasons behind the decision to do so.<\/p>\n
District Judge Kamala Ponnampalam granted the application on Sept 18.<\/p>\n
Those given such a discharge can still be prosecuted for the offences if relevant information or evidence were to emerge later.<\/p>\n
The court heard that Razak also used to be the chairman of the madrasah\u2019s management committee. In 2014, the committee decided that the madrasah should move its international projects to a company called Irsyad Trust.<\/p>\n
The company was established by the committee earlier.<\/p>\n
According to court documents, the international projects broadly promoted Islamic education and supported capacity building of Islamic schools in the region.<\/p>\n
The prosecution said that for many years, the madrasah developed a series of textbooks which were used as part of its teaching curriculum.<\/p>\n
Razak was directly involved in the development of these books, but in January 2016, he resigned from the madrasah and became the trust\u2019s executive director.<\/p>\n
In April 2017, the madrasah appointed a company called Key-Orient Lamitec (KOL) as the sole and exclusive distributor of the books.<\/p>\n
As part of an agreement, the madrasah would receive royalty payments from KOL, which was also entitled to enter into arrangements with other entities to market and distribute the books.<\/p>\n
In June 2018, the trust entered into an agreement with KOL in which it was given the exclusive rights to promote, market, sell and distribute the textbooks.<\/p>\n
A content licence agreement was later signed between KOL and Cambridge University Press India.<\/p>\n
Under this agreement, KOL granted Cambridge the right to print and publish the textbooks exclusively for the Maldives government.<\/p>\n
In return, Cambridge would pay a content development fee to KOL.<\/p>\n
Between January 2019 and February 2020, Cambridge paid KOL $205,888 for the use of the master copy of the textbooks.<\/p>\n
KOL was obligated to pay $116,671 to the trust and $68,629 to the madrasah.<\/p>\n
In an e-mail dated Feb 5, 2020, to a KOL employee, Razak directed KOL to transfer the royalties, totalling $185,300, to the trust.<\/p>\n
Two days later, KOL transferred the amount with the understanding that the trust would transfer $68,629 to the madrasah.<\/p>\n
However, the amount was not transferred.<\/p>\n
At the trust\u2019s board of directors meeting on Feb 15, 2020, Razak told the other directors that the trust \u201chas made annual contributions of $20,000 since 2017\u201d to the madrasah.<\/p>\n
He said that the board should resolve to \u201cmake a donation of $70,000\u201d to the madrasah.<\/p>\n
The prosecution said: \u201cHowever, (Razak) failed to take steps to make payment to the madrasah until Feb 22, 2022, when he prepared a cheque of $70,000 issued by ITL (the trust).\u201d<\/p>\n
The money included the sum of $68,629 which he misappropriated.<\/p>\n
The crime was uncovered when the Commercial Affairs Department launched a probe into Razak\u2019s financial dealings with the madrasah.<\/p>\n
Separately, Razak, who was a senior director at the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore<\/span><\/a> (MUIS) from 2011 to January 2016, was convicted of one count of misusing a computer system linked to the madrasah.<\/p>\n He did this after he left MUIS and the school.<\/p>\n MUIS has oversight over the madrasah, and while in MUIS, Razak was tasked to manage the school\u2019s affairs.<\/p>\n According to court documents, Razak wanted to access the computer system to continue receiving e-mails that were sent to his personal address linked to the madrasah.<\/p>\n The prosecution said that he was no longer entitled to access the e-mail server or use the e-mail address.<\/p>\n There is no evidence this offence caused any losses or damage.<\/p>\n Razak has since made full restitution linked to the $68,629.<\/p>\n On Sept 18, defence lawyer Aristotle Eng told the court that Razak intends to file an appeal, and his bail has been set at $30,000.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n SINGAPORE \u2013 A former executive director of a madrasah or Islamic religious school was on Sept 18 sentenced to seven weeks\u2019 jail for pocketing royalties…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":86001,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2611],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-headlines","wpcat-2611-id"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=86000"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86000\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/86001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=86000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=86000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=86000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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