Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi is pictured at the Kuala Lumpur High Court December 12, 2019. — Pictures by Ahmad Zamzahuri
KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 12 — Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi’s lawyer showed in court today photocopies of the cheque butts that recorded the alleged purposes of a RM1 million cheque as a political donation to the deputy prime minister.
He also showed two others for a combined RM1 million were recorded as for “charity”
Zahid’s lawyer Hisyam Teh Poh Teik was questioning Maybank officer Harryade Mohamad Arbe over three cheques issued in 2017 and 2018 by the company Profound Radiance Sdn Bhd to the law firm Lewis & Co.
In this trial where Zahid is facing 47 charges including bribery, Profound Radiance was previously named as the company whose director Azlan Shah Jaffril allegedly gave RM2 million in three cheques as bribes to Zahid.
The money is alleged to have travelled through Lewis & Co’s bank account to Zahid, in return for his using his position then as the home minister to appoint the company as the operator of one stop centres for migrant workers in Pakistan and Nepal.
Harryade, who is assistant manager of Maybank’s Dataran Maybank branch, confirmed that Profound Radiance had a current account with the bank.
Harryade confirmed that Profound Radiance had via a cheque dated July 31, 2017 for RM300,000 and a cheque dated February 9, 2018 for RM700,000 made payments to Lewis & Co, and that these two cheques showed the money going into the law firm’s client account.
Such accounts are typically used to hold money belonging to a firm’s clients in trust.
Harryade confirmed that the copies of the cheque butts showed “charity” being written as the purpose for these two cheques, but said he did not know whether these cheques totalling RM1 million were actually for charity purposes.
When suggested by Hisyam that these two cheques were for “Islamic charity payable to Lewis & Co as trustee for Yayasan Akalbudi”, Harryade said he did not know.
Harryade also verified the RM1 million cheque dated January 3, 2018 issued by Profound Radiance to Lewis & Co, reading out the copy of the cheque butt as stating “political fund to TPM”. (TPM is known to be Bahasa Melayu initial for deputy prime minister, a post which Zahid had held from July 2015 to May 2018).
Hisyam: Although “political fund to TPM”, but payable to Lewis & Co?
Harryade: Yes, agree.
Hisyam: I say these three transactions are for charity for the first two cheques and another for political donation, these are outright transactions with no strings attached, agree or not, know or not?
Harryade: Don’t know.
Harryade is the 26th prosecution witness testifying against Zahid, with today being the 12th day of trial.
MORE TO COME
