KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 3 — The over RM900,000 that former Kuala Lumpur Criminal Investigation Department (CID) chief Datuk Ku Chin Wah received from two property purchases was a finder's fee and not bribes, a prosecution witness testified today.

Datuk Khoo Ah See, who was the KL deputy police chief when he retired in 1998, said he only kept a tenth of the 1 per cent commission for arranging the purchases of Izumi Hotel and Fortuna Hotel as a referral fee, while Ku got the remainder for locating the seller.

Local daily The Sun reported businessman Datuk Seri Kok Kuan Hwa as saying on May 30 that he purchased Izumi Hotel for RM5.5 million in 2009 and Fortuna Hotel for RM98 million in 2013.

"After that Kok told me that he will give me 1 per cent from the sale price. I told Datuk Ku Chin Wah that if I get money from the sale, I will give him all and he just needs to give me 10 per cent from that 1 per cent.

"That is fair because he found the seller, I just sent it in," he told the Sessions Court today.

Based on the declared purchase price and the split in fees, Khoo would have received RM5,000 from the Izumi Hotel deal while Ku would have gotten RM49,500. In the Fortuna deal, Khoo’s portion would be RM98,000 and Ku's share, RM882,000.

When asked by defence lawyer Datuk Geethan Ram Vincent if there were elements of crime or corruption in Ku's acceptance of the fees, Khoo emphatically said there was none.

However, deputy public prosecutor Budiman Lufti Mohamed Budiman told reporters later that the case was not over the legality of the fees, but Ku's failure to inform authorities of how they were derived.

"He declared all his assets but he didn't declare the source. He has all this money in his account but no source. He declared his stocks and insurance but not the source.

"That is the crux of the case, failure to declare the source of income," he said.

Khoo also testified that all the commissions were paid in cash and without a written agreement between any of the parties involved.

On May 30, Kok testified in front of judge Sohaini Alias that Ku did not receive any direct commission from the two purchases as the 1 per cent fee was paid to Khoo.

On May 16, Mohd Firdaus Ahmad Sabry, an investigator from the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC), testified that there was no element of corruption in the RM800,000 commission Ku received for brokering the deals.

The former KL CID chief was initially charged under Section 49(3) of the Anti-Money Laundering and Anti-Terrorism Financing Act 2001 for failing to declare his acceptance of a “commission” amounting to RM961,500 in a sworn statement dated January 8, 2014.

However, his charge was later amended to Section 49 (1) of the same act for “failure to abide by the Attorney-General’s terms of the notice."