Jan 30 decision on joint trial bid
Published on: Wednesday, January 17, 2018
Kota Kinabalu: The Special Corruption Court here will on Jan 30 deliver its ruling on the application by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission to have the case of Sabah Water Department deputy director Teo Chee Kong to be jointly tried with the case of former Water Department Director Awang Mohd Tahir Awang Mohd Talib, his wife Fauziah Piut and former deputy director of the department Lim Lam Beng.Judge Abu Bakar Manat set the date after a defence team representing Teo objected to the application by Deputy Public Prosecutor Tengku Amir Zaki Tengku Abdul Rahman during the pre-trial case management, Tuesday.He instructed the prosecution to file a written submission and serve it to the defence counsel by Jan 19 and for the defence to file its reply and serve to the prosecution by Jan 25.
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Earlier, Tengku Amir applied orally for Teo's case to be jointly tried with the cases involving Ag Mohd Tahir, Fauziah and Lim who were charged before Teo under the same Act and Section, which had been fixed for trial on Feb 21-23 this year.Tengku Amir added that the cases are almost the same in relation to witnesses.Teo's counsel Roland Cheng, Ram Singh and Nelson Angang applied for the prosecution, through the court, to give them the charge sheets against Ag Mohd Tahir, Fauziah and Lim.Cheng argued that they would not be able to reply to the request for a joint trial if they have no idea as to the basis on which the other parties are going to be charged.
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The court stand down the proceedings for a while for the defence to examine the charge sheets of the other three parties.When the proceeding resumed, Cheng informed the court that they maintained their preliminary view to object to a joint trial and that they would wait for the prosecution to file a formal application and would reply to it.
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Teo, 52, is facing 146 charges of money laundering from illegal activities amounting to RM32,923,254.25.He had on Dec 13 last year pleaded not guilty to all the 78 charges which stated that Teo allegedly have 70 land titles from illegal activities through 78 transactions valued at RM12,705,203.70 after transfer of ownership.He allegedly committed the offence between Oct 21, 2005 and Aug 19, 2014 at separate locations in the Land Office in Beaufort, Kota Kinabalu, Penampang, Sipitang, Papar and Land and Survey Department here. The charges under Section 4(1)(a) of the Anti-Money Laundering and Anti-Terrorism Financing Act 2001 provides for a fine of up to RM5 million or a jail term of up to five years or both, on conviction.The remaining 68 charges against Teo stated that he allegedly committed six offences of having cash totalling RM7,930,810.48 (RM5,952,050 in Ringgit Malaysia and RM1,978,760.48 in estimated foreign currencies) from illegal activities and 62 offences of having money in a bank accounts totalling RM12,287,240.07 from illegal activities in eight financial institutions here and in Kuala Lumpur.The offence allegedly took place between Oct 4, 2016 and Dec 30, 2016.Each charges framed under Section 4 (1) (b) of the Anti-Money Laundering, Anti-Terrorism Financing and Proceeds of Unlawful Activities Act 2001 carries a jail term of up to 15 years and liability of a fine of not less than five times the sum or value of the proceeds of an unlawful activity or instrumentalities of an offence at the time the offence was committed or five million ringgit, whichever is the higher, on conviction.Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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