KOTA KINABALU: A former Sabah National Registration Department (NRD) director had admitted to earning more than RM1mil from selling temporary Malaysian identity card receipts.

Deputy Supt Badaruddin Ismail of the Special Branch told the Royal Commission of Inquiry here that the director, Ramli Kamaruddin, made the admission when he questioned him following his detention under the Internal Security Act (ISA) in 1996.

He said Ramli admitted to profiteering from the sale of Malaysian identification documents to Filipino, Indonesian and Pakistani nationals.

DSP Badaruddin, now with the Kelantan police, said he was attached to the national police headquarters at Bukit Aman in 1996 when he carried out the questioning, which followed Special Branch operations to cripple the illegal issuance of identity cards in the state.

He said during a series of interviews with Ramli, the latter admitted to selling 16,000 temporary identity receipts for the application of new ICs and replacement of ICs at RM250 each.

He said of the 16,000 receipts, 14,000 had been issued by Sabah NRD staff while the remaining 2,000 had been personally given out by Ramli between 1993 and 1995.

Questioned by counsel Datuk Ahmad Abdul Rahman who was keeping a watching brief for the Sabah Law Association, Badaruddin said Ramli had admitted that he had shared the RM1mil payment with his staff.

"Part of the money he had utilised for his personal use while some of it went to sponsoring the Sabah NRD staff sports festival in Penang,''Badaruddin added.

To a question, he said Ramli had never told him that the issuing of the temporary identity card receipts had been done on the instructions of former Deputy Home Minister, the late Tan Sri Megat Junid Megat Ayub.

"From the information I gathered from him, this was merely an operation for personal gain,'' he added.

The on-going RCI is to investigate the long-standing problems related to illegal immigrants in Sabah.

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