KUALA LUMPUR: The eighth prosecution witness in Lim Guan Eng’s corruption trial has been ordered to bring a copy of the entire WhatsApp conversation between two businessmen linked to the former Penang chief minister.
Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) forensics department investigating officer Wan Mohd Firdaus Wan Yusof, who was recalled for more questioning yesterday, was instructed to return today with the full report of one of the businessmen’s phone extraction.
The message threads between Consortium Zenith Construction Sdn Bhd (CZCSB) director Datuk Zarul Ahmad Mohd Zulkifli and businessman G. Gnanaraja had been produced in a separate trial in Shah Alam, involving Gnanaraja.
“Bring the document as your own reference during the cross-examination. As for the production of the report in court, I will hear its application first,” said judge Azura Alwi.
When asked if he could do so, Wan Mohd Firdaus said he had a copy of it instead of the original.
Earlier, Lim’s lead counsel Gobind Singh Deo was told to submit an official application under Section 51 of the Criminal Procedure Code for the report, which is affidavit from a different case, to be produced in court.
Gobind had said that the defence already had a court order from Sept 29 last year for the MACC officer to provide all necessary documents regarding Zarul Ahmad’s handphone, including text messages with Gnanaraja, which was used in the Shah Alam case.
He said the full report contained important messages exchanged between the two businessmen on Aug 17 and Aug 18, 2017, that could exonerate his client.
In the Shah Alam case, Gobind said that two of Ahmad Zarul’s company directors – Ibrahim Sahari and Azli Adam – had given a different statement in Shah Alam and testified that a sum of RM2mil was meant for “someone else”.
He said the whole message thread would show Ahmad Zarul, who testified earlier he had asked Gnanaraja to pass RM2mil, codenamed “chocolate”, in bribes to Lim, had lied.
“In the Shah Alam case, they gave different testimonies. They are saying the ‘chocolate’ in this case is meant for Lim Guan Eng, but they said it was not meant for Lim Guan Eng in Shah Alam,” he said.
Gobind had asked if he could play two videos of the witnesses testifying in the Shah Alam case to show that they gave contradicting statements in court.
However, deputy public prosecutor Datuk Wan Shaharuddin Wan Ladin objected to the request, saying the witnesses were not in court.
He also called the defence’s attempt to obtain court affidavits from the Shah Alam case “irrelevant”, prompting Gobind to launch into a tirade against the prosecution for failing to produce the document despite a court order issued in September.
In his reply, Wan Shaharuddin said that a formal application was still necessary.
“The document is not part of the ongoing trial, so the application should be done under the Criminal Procedure Code.
“The defence needs to specify what document they want. The burden is on the defence to state the relevance,” he said.
Earlier, the son of the 32nd prosecution witness, Ariffin Awang, was in court to testify that his father died on Oct 12 last year.
Mohd Adi Ariffin, 29, told the court that his father, who was with the Penang Land and Mines Office, had died of a lung infection due to a stroke.
Ariffin was the second prosecution witness who died during the ongoing trial after property developer Datuk Ewe Swee Kheng, who fell from his Pulau Tikus condominium in Penang.
The trial resumes today.
Lim, 62, is facing an amended charge of using his position as Penang Chief Minister to solicit RM3.3mil in bribes as an inducement to assist Consortium Zenith BUCG Sdn Bhd (CZBUCG) owner Zarul Ahmad to secure the project worth RM6,341,383,702.
He allegedly committed the offence at the Chief Minister’s Office on Level 28, Komtar, between January 2011 and August 2017.
In the second amended charge, Lim is accused of soliciting a bribe of 10% of the profit from the company as gratification to secure the project. The offence was allegedly committed near The Gardens Hotel, Mid Valley City here in March 2011.
Lim, who is the former DAP secretary-general, faced another two charges of causing two plots of land worth RM208.8mil, belonging to the Penang government, to be disposed of to two companies linked to the state’s undersea tunnel project.
