KUALA LUMPUR, June 15 – Law firm Lewis & Co – which Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi was accused of ordering alleged illegal funds to be deposited into – had received a total of RM25.9 million via 41 transactions in a span of roughly two years, based on 10 bank officials from five banks who testified today in his corruption and money-laundering trial.
However, it has yet to be made clear in court how the funds verified by bank officials today relate to Zahid’s criminal case, with the Lewis & Co bank account where the funds were deposited being a clients’ account where clients’ funds are typically held on trust and can be for legitimate purposes.
Today was the 22nd day of the trial of Umno president and former deputy prime minister Zahid, with 10 sources mentioned as those who had transferred RM25.9 million (to be exact RM25,952,770) to Lewis & Co’s clients’ account during the March 2016 to March 2018 period.
While most of the bank documents verified in court today did not explicitly mention the Lewis & Co as a clients' account except for about four transactions, bank officials had verified the other transactions to be aimed for the same bank account based on the account number.
Zahid’s lawyers had previously asserted that Lewis & Co is a law firm that acts as a trustee for his family-owned charitable foundation Yayasan Akalbudi.
Who transferred the RM25.9 million and why?
The 10 bank officials from Public Bank, Maybank, CIMB, Hong Leong Bank, RHB today verified multiple bank documents such as cheques and bank statements, including for single transactions from their bank customers to Lewis & Co or multiple transactions to the same law firm. Not all of the 41 bank transactions had their purposes listed in the bank documents.
Public Bank Wisma Naza Sungai Besi branch’s banking services manager Mar Sai Chin, who was first to testify today as the 44th prosecution witness, confirmed that a bank customer named Patt Siew Ming had transferred RM25,950 via a June 21, 2016 cheque to to Lewis & Co’s Clients’ Account.
Maybank’s Bangsar branch executive officer and 45th prosecution witness Lina Zailan confirmed that K. Rajan Gunaretnam had transferred RM102,300 via a June 23, 2016 cheque to the same Clients’ Account of the law firm.
CIMB Midvalley branch manager Lau Ai Mai as the 47th prosecution witness verified that HRA Teguh Sdn Bhd transferred RM313,000 in a June 30, 2016 cheque to Lewis & Co and said banks would not know the purpose for transactions unless when checked with customers, while Maybank Giza Kota Damansara officer Au Lai Ban as the 52nd prosecution witness testified that MTM Networks Sdn Bhd had transferred a RM600,000 sum via a June 28, 2017 banker’s cheque to the law firm for the stated purpose of “legal fees”.
Maybank’s Bandar Utama assistant manager Suzaliza Kamari as the 48th prosecution witness verified that MY EG Sdn Bhd had transferred RM600,000 to company official Chong Chien Ming for the declared purpose of “legal fees”, with Chong then verified as having passed the same amount through a January 15, 2018 banker’s cheque to Lewis & Co.
As for those who made multiple transfers, RHB’s First Avenue Bandar Utama manager G. Jayachantran as the 51st prosecution witness confirmed that MY EG Sdn Bhd had transferred a total of RM8.4 million to Lewis & Co via 14 transactions of RM600,000 each during the May 2016 to March 2018 period, with many of these transactions stated by MY EG as being for “legal fees”.
These 14 transactions of RM600,000 each were listed as being through demand drafts dated May 13, 2016, and in 2017 (January 6, January 26, February 24, March 29, May 23, June 7, August 7, September 27, November 2, December 12) and in 2018 (January 29, March 14, March 26).
In affirming that MY EG’s employees had made the transactions, Jayachantran explained that RHB would usually conduct verification of company employees seeking to make fund transfers such as asking them for their company tag and by confirming with the company’s directors or signatory to ensure that the requests to issue cheques actually come from the company.
As for the biggest contributor to the total tally from the 10 bank officials’ testimony today, Chia Bee Enterprise Sdn Bhd was verified by the 49th prosecution witness and Maybank Central Square operations officer Sharifah Shifah Syed Zainol as having issued a total of 10 cheques for RM1 million each all dated April 21, 2016, or for a total of RM10 million to Lewis & Co’s clients’ account.
Maybank’s Sea Park branch executive Mohd Zulkarnain Ab Latiff as the 50th prosecution witness meanwhile verified that Kiosk Solutions Sdn Bhd had paid a total of RM4.8 million via seven transactions to Lewis & Co during the March 2016 to December 2016 period.
Kiosk Solutions’ payments were listed as involving one banker’s cheque of RM1.2 million on June 24, 2016, while the rest were RM600,000 each in banker’s cheques all issued in 2016 dated March 21, August 1, September 2, September 30, October 28, December 9.
Were the transactions normal and not in violation of laws?
Most of the bank officials who testified today agreed with Zahid’s lawyer Mohd Haziq Dhiyauddin Razali that the transfers of money to Lewis & Co that they had verified were normal transactions that did not have odd elements or did not breach any laws, as they agreed that the transactions being recorded by banks would be traceable and would have nothing hidden as details of the payer and recipient are in bank records.
They however also agreed with deputy public prosecutor Harris Ong Mohd Jeffrey Ong that their answers were based only on the bank documents available to them in court today, with some also explaining that their answers were based on the transactions being done according to customers’ requests.
But some of the bank officials who testified in court today were more cautious in their replies, by declining to give their opinions on whether the bank transactions had violated any laws.
Maybank Setapak branch assistant manager Yusri Md Kasri, who was also the 46th prosecution witness, verified that Cergas Murni Sdn Bhd had paid a total of RM1,011,520 or slightly more than RM1 million via three cheques (RM447,773.42 dated March 29, 2016, RM259,047.04 dated April 4, 2016 and RM304,699.54 dated April 6, 2016) to Lewis & Co’s client account.
Yusri then agreed with Haziq that the bank transactions that he had verified were by a verified Maybank customer that were recorded just like any other bank transactions and that nothing is hidden as the transactions could be traced back.
But when asked by Haziq if there was nothing against the law in these three transactions, Yusri said he “did not know”, before going on to explain that the bank carried out instructions by the customer to pay funds to Lewis & Co’s account number which had been written on the cheques and that his answer was limited to the bank documents available to him.
Hong Leong Bank’s Jalan Sultan Ismail branch customer service operations manager Wong Shiau Ping, who is the 53rd prosecution witness and also the last bank official to testify today, verified that bank customer Mohamed Hussein Mohammad Annifah had transferred money via two bankers’ cheques both dated June 7, 2016 and for RM50,000 each to Lewis & Co for the written purpose of “lawyers’ fees”.
But Wong appeared to suggest that banks could not know for certain if their customers’ transactions were for legitimate purposes.
While agreeing with Zahid’s lawyer Haziq that the two transactions totalling RM100,000 were normal transactions that were traceable as they were in the bank’s records, Wong only agreed to Haziq’s suggestion that there was nothing odd in the transactions but refrained from confirming that the transactions did not breach any laws.
“The way the customer bought it, is correct...The latter part I don’t know,” she said.
When explaining to deputy public prosecutor Harris, Wong said the “lawyers’ fees” were indeed written by the customer as the purpose of the transactions, but pointed out that the bank merely carries out the customers’ instructions: “When customers come to the bank, they want to issue bankers’ cheques, we just follow whatever bank procedures to issue bankers’ cheques for customers, the purpose for them issuing the cheques, we don’t know.”
Previously, Maybank’s Dataran Maybank branch manager Leong Siew Kong’s court testimony as the 39th prosecution witness had shown that more than RM99 million in funds were deposited into Lewis & Co’s client account at Maybank from 2016 to 2018 without triggering red flags for suspicious transactions.
Leong had confirmed that funds were deposited into Lewis & Co’s client account based on account statements and without mentioning the source of these funds, and had explained then that law firms’ client accounts would typically not trigger red flags due to the nature of their account as holding funds on trust for their clients.
In this trial, Zahid is facing 47 charges, namely 12 counts of criminal breach of trust in relation to Yayasan Akalbudi’s funds, 27 counts of money-laundering, and eight counts of bribery charges.
The trial before High Court judge Collin Lawrence Sequerah resumes tomorrow.
