KOTA KINABALU: The Magistrate’s Court here fixed July 22 to re-mention and hand over documents to be used in the trial of a politician charged with four counts of molesting an Unduk Ngadau (UN) contestant.
Magistrate Jessica Ombou Kakayun set the date for Phillip Among @ Daniel Dell Fidelis, 52, who was charged under Section 354 of the Penal Code, when one of the cases was set for case management on Wednesday.
The indictment provides for a jail term of up to 10 years and a fine or with whipping or any two of the punishments, upon conviction.
On the first to the fourth charges, the accused allegedly molested the UN contestant at a studio of a company at Asia City, inside a moving car on the way from dinner to an old office, at a staircase beside a photo studio here and inside an office at Metrotown respectively on May 19.
The accused is currently released on a bail of RM8,000 for each of the charges with two local sureties and his sureties can be the same persons.
During a previous hearing, the court also ordered for the accused’s passport be impounded by the prosecution, to report once a month at a nearest police station and the accused and/or his representative been restricted to communicate with the victims and/or the families of the victims.
Earlier, the prosecution had applied for a consolidation of the trial for all the charges on the grounds that these cases involved the same victim and accused.
Counsel Abdul Fikry Jaafar Abdullah, who represented the accused, raised no objection to the application made by the prosecution pursuant to Section 165 of the Criminal Procedure Code.