Court denies Guan Eng's arrest warrant bid against absent key witness
Published on: Thursday, May 02, 2024
By:
FMT, Ho Kit Yen
.jpg "Court denies Guan Eng's arrest warrant bid against absent key witness")
Former Penang chief minister Lim Guan Eng at the sessions court in Kuala Lumpur today. (Bernama pic)
Kuala Lumpur: The sessions court here today rejected an application by Lim Guan Eng’s defence team for an arrest warrant to be issued against a key witness in his undersea tunnel corruption case.
Judge Azura Alwi said she had no intention of ordering the arrest of businessman Zarul Ahmad Zulkifli despite the prosecution’s failure to produce a medical certificate for the absent witness.
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Deputy public prosecutor Wan Shaharuddin Wan Ladin earlier informed the court that Zarul was unable to be present in court today on grounds that he was ill.
“We only knew about it this morning,” he said, adding that the prosecution would ask Zarul to bring his medical certificate at the next hearing, scheduled for June 7.
Lawyer RSN Rayer then told the court that Zarul should have procured a medical certificate to prove he was not fit to attend court.
Azura, however, said she would look into the reasons for Zarul’s absence at the next hearing date.
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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.
He is also accused of two counts of dishonestly misappropriating RM208.7 million worth of state land.
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