Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi has sent a letter of representation to the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC) to drop 47 charges of criminal breach of trust, corruption and money laundering involving Yayasan Akalbudi (YAB) against him.
Lawyer Hamidi Mohd Noh, representing Zahid, asked High Court judge Collin Lawrence Sequerah, who is now a Court of Appeal judge, to adjourn today's proceedings pending a decision from Attorney-General Idrus Harun (on the representation).
“We wrote a letter of representation in January, and we sent a continuation and new representation with some new facts and evidence relating to the charges to the AGC in February.
“(The) prosecution have replied they have no objection (to postponing the trial) on their side, as the representation is about 200 pages long and they need more time to consider it,” he said.
Zahid, 70, who is also the rural and regional development minister, is facing 47 charges, namely 12 on criminal breach of trust, eight on corruption and 27 on money laundering involving tens of millions of ringgit belonging to Yayasan Akalbudi.
Meanwhile, deputy public prosecutor Abdul Malik Ayob said he received instructions from Idrus not to object to the application for the postponement of the trial of the case.
"In the representation letter submitted to us, there are several parts, first in January, then on Feb 14; various documents were handed over to us, all of which are more than 200 pages.
"After going through the representation, which is lengthy and contained complex issues, we were instructed not to object to the application (adjournment of hearing) because the prosecution needs reasonable time to consider (the representation)," he said.
MACC’s investigation
Asked by Sequerah how long it would take to pore through the representation and make a decision, Abdul Malik said his side needed more time because the application for adjournment of the trial was accompanied by a letter from the MACC chief commissioner Azam Baki to Idrus dated Feb 20.
According to Abdul Malik, the letter stated that the MACC is conducting further investigations regarding the new evidence presented by the defence.
"We have not received any information regarding MACC's further investigation. However, the prosecution needs the results of the investigation to decide on the representation application.
"We do not know whether they (MACC) have started the investigation or not; therefore to complete the whole process, we need the results of the investigation," he said.
In addition, Abdul Malik said the prosecution would inform the court if the representation decision was decided before the next hearing date.
Hamidi then said that the defence wanted the 16-day hearing, from April to July, which had previously been set, to be vacated pending a response from the attorney-general on the representation.
Sequerah allowed today's hearing of the case to be adjourned and April/July trial dates vacated.
The court also maintained the trial dates in August which are 1 to 3, 7 to 10 and 21 to 24 while the new trial dates have been set for Sept 4 to 8, Oct 30 and 31, Nov 13 to 17 and 20 to 24 while in December from 11 to 15.
Zahid, dressed in a black suit, arrived in court at 9am.
The trial is at the defence stage. The defence has so far called six witnesses, including Zahid himself, to testify.
- Bernama
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