Tuesday January 22, 2008
Vacation photo taken sometime in 1995 or 1996, says Lingam
KUALA LUMPUR: Datuk V.K. Lingam went on a holiday in Spain and Morocco with tycoon Tan Sri Vincent Tan and former Attorney-General Tan Sri Mohtar Abdullah.
He said he was “neighbourhood friends” with Mohtar who lives “very, very near” his house.
Lingam said he knew Tan in 1991 when his legal firm was one of the panel lawyers for the Berjaya Group but he rarely saw him as Tan was a “busy businessman.”
“I only spoke to the in-house legal advisers and general managers.
“I hardly talked to him but if he really wanted to speak to me, he would call me on the phone and ask me to brief him,” he said, describing Tan as “a good friend.”
Lingam said he had gone on three holidays with Tan, including a couple of pilgrimages to India, up until 1999.
Lingam said he first became friends with Mohtar, then the Attorney General, when they attended a neighbourhood gathering on security in 1994.
He said he had been to Mohtar's house twice for Hari Raya but never had private dinners with him.
On the Spain holiday, which Robert Lazar, counsel for the Malaysian Bar, produced a photo of, Lingam said it was probably taken in 1995 or 1996 when Mohtar was not a High Court judge then.
On his relationship with Tourism Minister Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor, Lingam said he first knew him in the 1990s when the latter was a director in one of the Berjaya Group of companies.
He said he did not meet Adnan in 2001 and 2002 as he had “lost contact with him (Tengku Adnan) after he left Berjaya.”
Lingam said he had only been to Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s house after September 2005, when he acted as his counsel in the defamation suit brought against Dr Mahathir by Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim.
“Since then, I have visited him at his house and at his office to discuss the case several times,” he said.
Lingam described his relationship with former Chief Justice Tun Eusoff Chin as “not extremely close.”
Asked if he had gone on a holiday with Eusoff in 1994, Lingam immediately instructed his lawyer R. Thayalan to object to the line of questioning.
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