KUALA LUMPUR (July 8): The whistle-blower who alerted Petroliam Nasional Bhd (PETRONAS) of an alleged attempt to leak classified information to rivals Petroleum Sarawak Bhd (Petros) had retracted an initial complaint made immediately following the incident.

Testifying as the fourth witness in the ongoing criminal case against ex-PETRONAS employee Mohd Khairul Akmal Jasni, the company's senior manager of complaint management Lailatul Badriah Razali said that the official complaint was received via the company’s whistle-blowing channel on Dec 6, 2024.

"They sent an initial [complaint] email on June 8, 2024, but we never received it as it was retracted. We only received the [complaint] email on Dec 6, 2024," the witness testified, adding that they only knew about the retraction from the subsequent email thread.

Defence counsel Louis Liaw: [In the email], the whistle-blower says that they are just resending their original email that they had intended to send?

Lailatul: Correct.

Mohd Khairul, who was the business performance unit manager at PETRONAS at the material time, is accused of attempting to leak a document to Petros from Marc Service Residence, Jalan Pinang, between 3.19pm and 3.21pm on June 8, 2024.

He is charged under Section 203A(1), read together with Section 511 of the Penal Code, for attempting to reveal information during official duty. If found guilty, he is liable to imprisonment of up to one year, a fine of not more than RM1 million, or both.

He was sacked by PETRONAS on Dec 20, 2024.

The court previously heard testimonies that Mohd Khairul had attempted to send a confidential document titled “Q1 2024 Upstream Business Performance” through his work email to the work email of Mohd Azha Abdul Jalil, who is currently the Petros chief financial officer, as well as to Petros group chief executive officer Datuk Janin Girie's work email.

Lailatul also testified on Wednesday that she had never communicated with the whistle-blower and had never reached out to the person, as the complaint already contained all the necessary information and documents.

She also verified that in the email, the whistle-blower stated that Mohd Khairul was a friend of theirs and was in the midst of recruitment process with Petros.

Lailatul also testified that her duty was limited to compiling the necessary documents for internal investigations. She testified that she herself is not part of the investigating committee.

During Tuesday's proceedings, the court heard testimony that the accused had applied for a position with Petros in January 2024, about five months before the alleged leak attempt.

Although an offer was made with a monthly salary of RM25,000 in March that year, Mohd Khairul eventually did not take up the offer as the company could not match his demand for a RM37,000 salary a month.

During Wednesday's proceedings, deputy public prosecutor Noor Syafina Mohamad Radzuan informed the court that the prosecution has five more witnesses before wrapping up their case.

Sessions Court judge Mazuliana Abdul Rashid asked parties to try their best to complete their case by the next set of dates in September.

The trial continues on Sept 22.

PETRONAS and Petros are currently embroiled in a battle over the control of the oil and gas industry in Sarawak, following Petros’ formation in 2017 which culminated in an ongoing dispute that has entered the Federal Court.

Read also:
Former PETRONAS manager applied to work at rival Petros about five months before alleged attempted leak, says witness
Former PETRONAS manager sent confidential emails to senior Petros officers, testifies IR manager
Witness: Leak of PETRONAS upstream and financial info could have undermined negotiations with Petros