Court allows Guan Eng to initiate impeachment of Penang undersea tunnel star witness

Judge Azura Alwi says she will scrutinise Zarul Ahmad Zulkifli’s statements to MACC to determine if there are discrepancies.

(FMT) – The sessions court here has allowed former Penang chief minister Lim Guan Eng to commence impeachment proceedings against the star witness in his undersea tunnel corruption case.

Judge Azura Alwi also ordered the prosecution to furnish the court with copies of Zarul Ahmad Zulkifli’s statements to the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) for examination.

Zarul’s statements were recorded by MACC in 2018 over a cheating case involving another potential witness, G Gnanaraja.

Azura said she will decide whether there were discrepancies between Zarul’s testimony in court and his statements before hearing the impeachment proceedings.

She also fixed Nov 17 for mention of the case.

Deputy public prosecutor Wan Shaharuddin Wan Ladin told the court the prosecution will hand over Zarul’s statements before the next mention date.

Previously, Lim’s lawyers had requested for them to be furnished with copies of Zarul’s statements, in an attempt to initiate impeachment proceedings against him.

The defence claims that Zarul gave “conflicting” statements to MACC over a purported RM2 million payment.

Last month, Zarul testified that in 2017, he paid out a total of RM4 million to Lim and then prime minister Najib Razak.

The payment was part of kickbacks Lim is alleged to have received from the tunnel project, he said.

He also claimed the other RM2 million was intended for Najib as he thought the former prime minister would be in the position to “influence” MACC to close investigations against him.

Lim is standing trial on charges of using his position to ask Zarul for a 10% cut of the profits from the undersea tunnel project, and accepting RM3.3 million from the businessman.

He is also accused of two counts of dishonestly misappropriating RM208.7 million worth of state land to two companies.