The prosecution will not be calling former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad as a witness in the trial of ex-transport minister Ling Liong Sik tomorrow.
At the conclusion of today's proceeding, lead prosecutor Tun Abdul Majid Tun Hamzah told the Kuala Lumpur High Court that the last witness to be called to the stand will be the case's investigating officer, R Rajagopal.
Tun Majid had earlier refused to confirm whether the last witness was Mahathir.
When approached after court adjourned to clarify his remark, however, Tun Majid admitted this is so.
"Mahathir is not relevent to this trial. This (land matter) was a cabinet decision, not the decision of Mahathir alone," he told reporters.
Tun Majid did not explain, however, why Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Mohd Nazri Abdul Aziz had yesterday testified as a witness.
The trial adjourned until later this evening, with Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Nor Mohamed also slated to take stand.
The prosecution had previously said that it intends to call Mahathir to the stand.
Among others, the prosecution had told the court that it wanted Mahathir to clarify a letter from Ling dated June 29, 2002 which urged the government to approve the Port Klang Free Zone land deal, which was being delayed.
Ling, 68, is facing a cheating charge for failing to disclose to cabinet an additional interest rate of 7.5 percent per annum on the purchase price of the land for the PKFZ project.
The land had been fixed at a price of RM1,088,456,000 by the Valuation and Property Services Department (JPPH) based on RM25 per square foot, inclusive of the coupon and interest rate.
He also faces two alternative charges of cheating and intentionally omitting from telling the cabinet that the 7.5 percent interest per annum was an additional rate on the land price.
The offences were allegedly committed at the fourth floor of the Prime Minister’s Office, Perdana Putra building in Putrajaya, between Sept 25 and Nov 6, 2002.
The trial began on Aug 1, 2011 with 24 witnesses being called thus far.
LPK not able to repay RM4.6billion soft loan
Meanwhile, Port Klang Authority (PKA) finance manager Adnan Adidin, 39, told the court that PKA had difficulties repaying its soft loan from the federal government.
He said, a total of RM4.6 billion was allocated to PKA for the PKFZ project in June 2007, with the first repayment of RM82.4 million made beginning the middle of that year.
"We were only able to repay for two years, which were 2011 and 2012. We had appealed to the Finance Ministry for favourable terms (of repayment), but (these have) not yet (been) approved," he said.
According to the witness, LPK need to pay RM199 million in 2012, and RM169 million in 2013. Adnan joined PKA in 1997.
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