Tuesday, 04 September 2012 10:03

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Obinna has been recommended by police to be charged for affray, together with the alleged victim.KUALA LUMPUR: Police have wrapped up their probe into the alleged assault by Kelantan's Nigerian footballer Obinna Nwaneri against a member of the public on Aug 27 and have come to an unexpected conclusion to the case.

Both Nwaneri and his alleged victim will be charged with affray.

This was confirmed by Shah Alam police chief Zahedi Ayob yesterday.

Zahedi said police have wrapped up the investigation and come to the conclusion that both parties played a role in the case.

"Both Nwaneri and the complainant, Faizaly Abdul Rais, will be charged under Section 160 of the Penal Code for affray.

"The recommendation was made to the Selangor Deputy Public Prosecutors office last week, after the probe was wrapped up," he told Malaysian Digest yesterday.

The Penal Code defines affray as "when two or more persons, by fighting, in a public place, disturb the public peace".

If found guilty, they face a maximum jail term of one month, or a RM200 fine, or both.

Meanwhile, the Football Association of Malaysia (FAM) has declared that they are staying out of the case for now.

FAM secretary-general Datuk Azzuddin Ahmad said the matter was a civil one and did not fall under purview of FAM.

"The incident happened in a public place and not on the field. So, any civil case is not our problem," he said.

He said the question of whether Nwaneri could face action by FAM over the incident has not arisen yet, as the authorities had yet to finalise its move.

"This has become a police case, let them handle it. It would be unfair and we don’t want to be making assumptions as to whether action will be taken against him or not as we do not know where he stands," he said.

The footballer courted controversy when he was accused of punching a company manager, Faizaly Abd Rais, at a hypermarket in Shah Alam on August 27.

Filepic of Faizaly holding up a copy of his police report on the day of incidentThe incident occurred when Nwaneri was alleged to have jumped the queue at the payment counter. When he was ticked off by Faizaly, a verbal disagreement ensued.

Nwaneri then threw a punch at Faizaly. He was stopped by a team member who intervened and calmed down the situation.

The incident was captured on the store’s CCTV cameras.

Faizaly met with Kafa team manager Azman Ibrahim shortly after the incident and lodged a police report soon after.

He is demanding that the authorities as well as Kafa take action against Nwaneri, and wants Kafa to sack the player.

Nwaneri, as a result, has been roundly criticized by social network channel users, who claimed that there was no need to resort to violence. They have also called for Nwaneri’s sacking.

One day after the incident, Nwaneri played a starring role for Kelantan, scoring his team’s equalizing goal in the 87th minute of their Malaysia Cup match against the Armed Forces team at the Selayang Municipal Council stadium.

Following the incident, Kafa president Tan Sri Annuar Musa declared that they would not take action against the player as the incident had no relation to football.

This however, contrasted with the stand adopted by Annuar’s deputy Datuk Affandi Hamzah, who said it was necessary to wait for police to complete the probe before deliberating on any action against the player.

Veteran football players had also voiced out their opinion that the top management, be it Kafa or FAM, should take disciplinary action against Nwaneri as physical abuse against a civilian should not be tolerated.