PUTRAJAYA - A company director today failed in her second appeal in the Court of Appeal here to transfer her money-laundering and criminal breach of trust (CBT) trial from the Sessions Court to the High Court.
The three-member bench comprising Justices Datuk Hadhariah Syed Ismail, Datuk Azman Abdullah and Datuk Azmi Ariffin struck out Tan Hoo Eng’s appeal after ruling that the appeal was incompetent.
In delivering the court’s decision, Justice Hadhariah said the court allowed a preliminary objection raised by the prosecution against Tan’s appeal.
"We agree with the deputy public prosecutor that the decision of the High Court (in refusing to transfer Tan’s trial from Sessions Court to High Court) is not appealable because it is not a final decision,” she said.
Tan, 66, was slapped with 30 CBT charges involving more than RM17 million from her company Blue Star Moulding Sdn Bhd from 2009 to 2013 and 54 money-laundering charges involving more than RM25 million from 2008 to 2014.
The CBT offences were alleged to have been committed at the company’s premises in Taman Ipoh, Ipoh, Perak while the money laundering charges were allegedly committed at the CIMB branch in Taman Tasik Jaya, Ipoh, Perak.
In 2020, the High Court dismissed Tan’s first application for transfer of her trial from the Sessions Court to the High Court. She lost her appeal in the Court of Appeal. She then filed an appeal to the Federal Court but later withdrew the appeal.
She then filed the second application following new evidence which she claims was favourable to her, but the second application was dismissed by another High Court judge in 2022, prompting her to appeal to the Court of Appeal.
Following today's appellate court decision, Tan's trial will be heard before the Sessions Court. - Bernama