I didn’t want to implicate Guan Eng, businessman tells court
Zarul also told the court that Lim instructed him to give statements to the media, after Zarul was released from Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) detention.
(FMT) – The star witness in Lim Guan Eng’s Penang undersea tunnel corruption trial told the sessions court he did not want to “implicate” the former chief minister when investigations started against the project.
Consortium Zenith BUCG Sdn Bhd director Zarul Ahmad Mohd Zulkifli said he instructed his two colleagues, Azli Adam and Ibrahim Sahari, to prepare fake payment vouchers and invoices to several entities.
Azli had told the court last month that what Zarul asked him and Ibrahim to process from 2012 to 2017 were bribes to Lim.
Today, Zarul said he knew that using fake payment vouchers and invoices was a criminal offence.
“I did that because I didn’t want YB’s (Lim’s) name to appear anywhere in the records. I felt indebted to him (for giving him the contract for the project),” he said.
Lim is standing trial on charges of using his position as then Penang chief minister to ask Zarul for a 10% cut of the profits from the undersea tunnel project and accepting RM3.3 million in kickbacks from the businessman.
He is also accused of two counts of dishonestly misappropriating RM208.7 million worth of state land to two companies.
Zarul also told the court that Lim instructed him to give statements to the media, after Zarul was released from Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) detention.
He had been remanded for 11 days in January 2018.
“I received instructions from YB to speak, implying that I was ‘forced’ to give statements to MACC during the investigations,” he said.
Asked by deputy public prosecutor Wan Shaharuddin Wan Ladin why he increased the “payments” to Lim from RM100,000 to RM500,000 some time before Chinese New Year in 2016, Zarul said the sum was raised because he had received money from selling a plot of land, known as Lot 702.
“I had achieved a ‘milestone’, so RM500,000 was a reasonable (sum) to give to him,” he said.
The court had heard that between 2013 and 2014, Zarul paid a total of RM200,000 to Lim to “fulfil” part of his promise to give him a 10% cut of the project’s profits.
Zarul had also said that in 2015, he gave Lim a luxury watch on his birthday.
The hearing before judge Azura Alwi continues on Aug 4 and 5. Lawyer Gobind Singh Deo told the court the defence will start its cross-examination on those dates.
