KUALA LUMPUR, June 9 — A temple caretaker told the High Court here today that she saw the accused in the murder of AmBank Group founder Hussain Ahmad Najadi shoot Hussain repeatedly until he collapsed.
Lim Sok Yee, 37, told the court, before that, she also saw the accused, Koong Swee Kwan, 45, shoot Hussain’s wife, Cheong Mei Kuen, 49.
“At the time, Hussain and his wife were walking to the car park before the accused ran after them from behind and shot his wife first causing her to fall.
“When his wife fell, Hussain turned around and was shot next. When Hussain fell, I saw him (accused) do something with his pistol, after that he fired several more shots,” she said, adding that she heard five shots in all.
Lim said this during examination-in-chief by Deputy Public Prosecutor Wan Shaharuddin Wan Ladin on the first day of the trial of Koong, who is charged with murdering Hussain, 75, at the car park of the Kuan Yin Temple at No.4 Lorong Ceylon, here on July 29 last year.
Earlier, the witness, the prosecution’s fourth, had told the court that Hussain and his wife had come to the temple to meet an individual known as Datuk Richard Morrais regarding some property matters.
Lim said, in the meeting, in which she and her elder sister were also present, Richard had asked the temple’s management to give RM300,000 to two individuals, Lim Sok Ling and Lim Soh Cheng, but Hussain objected because it involved money belonging to the temple.
“Hussain only came (to the temple on that day) to settle a problem,” she said, adding that the meeting started at 1.05pm and ended 30 minutes later.
Lim said during the discussion, she noticed someone loitering around the parking lot.
“I saw a man wearing a chequered shirt, long pants, cap and also wore spectacles. He was walking to and fro and kept looking into the temple.
“I felt it was something strange, why would anyone want to keep looking like that for so long,” she said.
Another witness, pathologist Dr Nurul Kharmila Abdullah, 36, told the court that Hussain died of repeated gunshot wounds in the chest.
Dr Nurul Kharmila, from the Kuala Lumpur Hospital’s Forensics Department, said this was established in the post-mortem done on the victim on July 30, 2013.
She said the external examination found there were three bullet entry wounds in the back of the chest and four from the front.
“The internal examination found the organs injured were the heart and aorta. The entry and exit of the bullets caused serious injuries to the heart,” she said, adding that the injuries to the aorta quickened the death process.
Asked by Wan Shaharuddin whether there was the possibility the victim could have been saved, the prosecution’s second witness said this was remote owing to the serious injuries to the heart.
“Even if the victim could have been brought to the operating theatre in time, it would have been very difficult to save him because the heart was ripped apart,” she said.
The hearing before Justice Datuk Mohd Azman Husin continues tomorrow. — Bernama
