Court accepts major portion of Fadzlette's statement in Zahid's trial

KUALA LUMPUR - The High Court today accepted a major portion of a witness statement by Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi’s former press secretary in the former deputy prime minister's corruption trial involving Yayasan Akalbudi (YAB) funds.

Judge Datuk Collin Lawrence Sequerah, however, said the court allowed the prosecution's objection to three paragraphs, namely, the last line in paragraphs 17 and 22, and the whole of paragraph 18 to be removed from the witness statement of Major General (R) Datuk Fadzlette Othman Merican Idris Merican, who is the second defence witness.

"I find that the rest of the questions, (paragraphs) 16 until 30 (of the witness statement) relate to facts directly in the issue which forms the core of the defence case and therefore, are not collateral matters under Section 153 of the Evidence Act 1950.

"With regard to paragraphs 16 and 17, I agree with the defence that the matters contained constitute a narrative introduction as to how the defence witness (Fadzlette) came to know the 90th prosecution witness, Ahmad Zahid’s former executive secretary, Major Mazlina Mazlan @ Ramly,” he said.

On Sept 19, the prosecution objected to parts of the witness statement by Fadzlette on grounds that they were irrelevant and inadmissible.

Yesterday, the defence contended that Ahmad Zahid would be deprived of a fair trial if the court accepted the prosecution's argument and stopped a defence witness from testifying.

Judge Sequerah said he found that Section 153 of the Evidence Act applied to very specific circumstances and that was where the evidence adduced went only as far as to injure the character of the witness (Major Mazlina) and not relevant to the facts and issue (of the case).

"In those circumstances, once a witness has answered the question, Section 153 of the Evidence Act will operate to prevent any adverse party from introducing contradictory evidence.

"Applying this principle to the particular proposed witness statement of the second defence witness (Fadzlette), I find the part in paragraphs 18 which the defence considers falls under the prohibitory ambit of Section 153 of the Evidence Act," he said.

The judge also said in his decision that he would be accepting the four proposed witness statements in order to save the court's time.

"Therefore those witness statements will be admitted as they are but without prejudice to the prosecution's right to ask for the offending paragraphs or portions of the witness statements to be expunged at the end of the case by way of submission of the whole case," he said.

The court then ordered for the witness statements to be amended accordingly.

The hearing continues with Fadzlette reading her witness statements.

Fadzlette was press secretary to Ahmad Zahid when he was deputy prime minister, and she is now the media director for the UMNO president.

On Aug 30, Ahmad Zahid completed giving evidence to defend himself after 17 days on the witness stand.

Ahmad Zahid, 69, is facing 47 charges, namely, 12 charges of criminal breach of trust, eight charges of corruption and 27 charges of money laundering involving tens of millions of ringgit belonging to YAB. - BERNAMA