Lawyer, Clare Rewcastle file documents to support PI Bala’s widow’s suit

A lawyer and Clare Rewcastle Brown have filed affidavits that purportedly reveal counsel Muhammad Shafee Abdullah has not been voluntarily retained by a businessman who is facing a suit filed by the widow of private investigator P Balasubramaniam.

(FMT) – A lawyer and Clare Rewcastle Brown have filed affidavits that purportedly reveal counsel Muhammad Shafee Abdullah has not been voluntarily retained by a businessman who is facing a suit filed by the widow of private investigator P Balasubramaniam.

Americk Sidhu said he and the Sarawak Report editor have filed affidavits in support of A Santamil Selvi’s move to strike out Deepak Jaikishan’s second defence and to disqualify Shafee from appearing for the businessman.

FMT is constrained from revealing the contents of the affidavits due to legal implications.

Americk, who was the initial lawyer acting for Santamil Selvi, said Deepak was working with a lawyer to prepare his defence, a copy of which was extended to him on Oct 25.

“He had also asked me to forward a copy of the defence to Clare which I did,” Americk told FMT in a telephone interview.

Americk said a man, who, he claimed, was believed to be a go-between for Deepak and a powerful politician, had met Deepak to persuade him not to file the defence and that, in return, he would help to resolve Deepak’s tax issues with the Inland Revenue Board (IRB).

He said Deepak had intimated to him several times that he and his company were facing massive problems with the IRB in respect of unpaid taxes due to a large number of property transactions for which he had allegedly been a proxy for a powerful couple.

Americk said on Oct 30, he received a call from Deepak who informed him that Shafee had been appointed his counsel, but that he had not given him (Shafee) any instructions personally.

He said Messrs Shafee & Co then filed a second defence on Nov 6 which were “diametrically opposed” in material particulars compared with the first.

Americk said he believed Deepak was sincerely remorseful for the financial predicament that Santamil Selvi and her family were in as he later handed RM250,000 in cash, presumably as part payment to settle the case.

The lawyer said Deepak and Clare had been in touch with each other since 2013.

Meanwhile, Clare is reported to have said in her affidavit that Shafee was appointed by other parties to act for Deepak.

Santamil Selvi, who is also acting for the estate of Balasubramaniam, filed the action in August for suffering intentional harm as a result of their exile in India.

She, together with her two children, Kishen and Menaga, are seeking damages, with interest, for losses suffered from July 2008 as a result of their five-year displacement.

They have named Najib Razak, Rosmah Mansor, Najib’s brothers Mohd Nazim and Johari, lawyers Sunil Abraham, Cecil Abraham, Arunampalam Mariampillai, commissioner for oaths Zainal Abidin Muhayat and Deepak as parties to the action.

They said the defendants had deprived her family of a normal life, and caused them to suffer financial and non-financial losses.

They claim to have suffered trauma and mental anguish caused by the defendants, and to have been deprived of a home in familiar surroundings.

Balasubramaniam, who was better known as PI Bala, was previously embroiled in a controversy over his two conflicting statutory declarations (SD) in the high-profile 2006 murder of Mongolian model Altantuya Shaariibuu.

In the present suit, the family said the defendants had caused Balasubramaniam’s second SD to be drafted without his instruction and, further, caused him to sign it under threat and inducement.

He was forced to leave Malaysia for India in a hurry after signing the second SD in July 2008, a day after the first was released.

The second SD dated July 4, 2008, is supposed to have cleared Najib of any involvement in the case.

Balasubramaniam, a key witness in the Altantuya trial, died of a heart attack on March 15, 2013, weeks after returning from India.

Meanwhile, Shafee has been given until Dec 7 to file an affidavit in reply to Santamil Selvi’s applications.

Justice Hue Siew Kheng will also hear on Dec 7 applications by all the nine defendants to strike out the suit.