KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 23 — The High Court denied the defence request to obtain a copy of the key prosecution witness’s conversation recorded by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) in the trial of Syed Saddiq Abdul Rahman who is facing charges of criminal breach of trust and money laundering will be known tomorrow.
High Court Judicial Commissioner, Datuk Azhar Abdul Hamid delivered his decision today just before the trial began.
"With regards to the defence request to have the witness' statement, that request is denied," he said briefly.
Yesterday, defence lawyer Gobind Singh Deo who is representing the former Youth and Sports Minister argued that the statement recorded by MACC was important as there were two conflicting scenarios given by the 13th prosecution witness, Rafiq Hakim Razali who was then Parti Pribumi Bersatu Malaysia's youth wing Armada's assistant treasurer on the collection of funds for the Muar MP’s campaign.
He said Rafiq Hakim told MACC officers that the money in Armada’s account are funds collected from the people by Syed Saddiq himself to campaign in Muar.
Gobind said that when giving his oral statement in court, Rafiq said the funds collected were for use by Armada, as such, there is a contradiction in his statement, but the defence was not provided with the document thus they were not able to obtain a fair hearing he said adding that the witness might have lied in court.
The trial continued with Rafiq on the stand.