The former senior vice-president of Consortium Zenith BUCG Sdn Bhd denied being coached by MACC and two others to lie in his testimony in the corruption trial against former Penang chief minister Lim Guan Eng.
Azli Adam told the Kuala Lumpur Sessions Court that he was never asked by the anti-graft agency, the company’s senior executive director Zarul Ahmad Mohd Zulkifli, and deputy public prosecutors (DPP) to lie in his testimony in the graft trial linked to the RM6.3 billion Penang Undersea Tunnel project.
The 24th prosecution witness said this during re-examination by DPP Mohd Mukhzany Fariz Mokhtar in open-court proceedings before trial judge Azura Alwi.
Lim’s (above) defence team previously contended that Zarul and several other prosecution witnesses lied as they gave different testimony during a separate criminal case at the Shah Alam Sessions Court.
The crux of the issue was that the witnesses at the Shah Alam criminal court had allegedly testified that an RM2 million payment was not for Lim but for somebody else, unlike in the present Kuala Lumpur court where the payment was claimed to be for the former finance minister.
On June 27 last year, Azli testified that invoices and payment vouchers were falsified to withdraw company money as bribes to Lim. He claimed that Zarul told him that the money was for Lim.
Mukhzany: When you were at the MACC headquarters (in Putrajaya), were you coached in telling your statement to MACC?
Azli: No (tiada).
Mukhzany: Were you coached by Zarul in giving your statement to MACC?
Azli: No.
Mukhzany: Were you coached by MACC officers in giving your statement to MACC?
Azli: No.
Mukhzany: Were you coached by the deputy public prosecutors in giving your statement to MACC?
Azli: No.
Earlier today, during cross-examination by lead defence counsel Gobind Singh Deo, Azli said he happened to meet Zarul at the MACC headquarters when he was summoned between 2018 and 2020. At the time, Zarul was earlier detained by the anti-graft watchdog.
Azli explained that Zarul told him that the money was for Lim when they were at the interrogation room in the basement of the MACC headquarters.
He claimed that following the short meeting with Zarul, he was taken by an MACC officer to a separate part of the building to have his statement recorded.
‘Suppression of evidence’
Gobind then contended that there was never a series of corrupt payments to Lim, to which Azli replied that he “does not know”.
The lawyer was referring to Azli’s written witness statement which laid out a chronology of alleged payments to Lim between 2012 and 2017, as told to the witness by Zarul.
Gobind contended that there was a “suppression of evidence” as Azli allegedly gave the same testimony in the Shah Alam Sessions Court in a cheating case against businessperson G Gnanaraja as the one given in the current graft case against Lim.
Following Gnanaraja being fined by the Shah Alam Sessions Court for an alternative charge under the Companies Act 1965 in 2020, he became a prosecution witness in the Kuala Lumpur Sessions Court trial of Lim.
Azli agreed with Gobind that he was first called up as a witness in a complaint by Zarul over alleged cheating by Gnanaraja, which was the subject matter of the Shah Alam Sessions Court cheating case.
Zarul’s complaint was that Gnanaraja had cheated him out of RM19 million as an inducement to settle an MACC case against the former.
Gobind’s claim of “suppression of evidence” was over Azli’s own admission today that he did not tell the Kuala Lumpur Sessions Court last year that he had testified at the Shah Alam Sessions Court that the RM2 million was for Gnanaraja. The lawyer claimed that the prosecution team was aware of this.
Azli also answered during grilling by Gobind that MACC still asked him to testify against Lim despite knowing that the same testimony in the Shah Alam Sessions Court was to also be used against the Bagan MP.
However, it should be noted that during re-examination by deputy public prosecutor Wan Shaharuddin Wan Ladin, Azli claimed that he did not understand most of the questions put to him by Gobind.
When Wan Shaharuddin asked whether the witness understood what Gobind meant by suppression of evidence, Azli conceded that he did not know what it meant.
Azli also told the DPP that he does not have personal knowledge of whether the RM2 million actually went to Lim and that only Zarul could answer that.
The trial before Azura resumes tomorrow.
Four graft charges
Before the criminal court in Kuala Lumpur, Lim is facing four graft charges.
One charge is framed under Section 16(A)(a) and Section 23 of the MACC Act.
Lim is accused of using his position as then Penang chief minister for the gratification of RM3.3 million as inducement for helping a company belonging to Zarul to secure the island state’s RM6.3 billion undersea tunnel project.
The offence was allegedly perpetrated at the Penang Chief Minister’s Office, 28th Floor, Komtar, George Town, Penang, between January 2011 and August 2017.
Under Section 23(1) of the MACC Act, the offence is punishable with imprisonment of up to 20 years and a fine not less than five times the value of the gratification or RM10,000, whichever is higher.
The second charge, also under Section 16(A)(a), accused Lim as the then Penang chief minister of having solicited from Zarul bribes amounting to 10 percent of the profits to be earned by the company as gratification for helping secure the project.
The offence was allegedly committed near The Gardens Hotel, Lingkaran Syed Putra, Mid Valley City, Kuala Lumpur, between 12.30am and 2am in March 2011.
The charge, framed under Section 16 of the MACC Act, provides for imprisonment for up to 20 years and a fine of not less than five times the value of the gratification or RM10,000, whichever is higher.
Lim also faces two counts of causing two plots of land, worth RM208.8 million and belonging to the Penang government, to be disposed to two companies allegedly linked to the undersea tunnel project.
The two charges, framed under Section 403 of the Penal Code, specify imprisonment of up to five years, whipping, and a fine.
The offences were allegedly committed at the Penang Land and Mines Office, Level 21, Komtar, between Feb 17, 2015, and March 22, 2017. - Mkini
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