KUALA LUMPUR, March 6 — Suspended lawyer VK Lingam has challenged the authenticity of an infamous video clip that purportedly showed him brokering the appointment of top judges, Malaysiakini reported.

The authenticity of the clip was questioned before the High Court on the grounds that the original recording had not been produced at the disciplinary committee hearing that culminated in the Advocates Solicitors Disciplinary Board’s decision to strike the senior lawyer off the roll for misconduct.

Lingam’s lawyers had also sought to challenge the committee’s decision based on the admission by the person who recorded the clip, former PKR MP Loh Gwo Burne, that the CD tendered as evidence for the hearing was not his.

“The maker of the CD which was downloaded from the Malaysiakini website was not called and the transcript was not produced during the disciplinary committee hearing,” S. Thayalan, Lingam’s lead counsel, was quoted as saying.

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“We also sent the CD for testing with our experts and the experts found there were other files on the CD.

“The committee relied on the contents of the clip and we say there is a possibility of the video being tampered with since the purported recording was done in 2001 and the clip only surfaced in 2007,” he added.

Thayalan said this suggested there was a break in the chain of evidence by the time the video was submitted to the committee.

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Lingam is seeking a review of the board’s decision.

The disgraced lawyer had filed an originating motion against the Malaysian Bar on December 15, 2015 to challenge the November 6 decision by the board.

Lingam was barred from practising following an allegation of misconduct to conspire or interfere in judicial appointments, an act which was allegedly caught on video.

Thayalan claimed the disciplinary committee’s report cannot be sustained in law and facts and hence it cannot be affirmed by the board.

He also argued that the burden of proof adopted by the board was not “beyond reasonable doubt”.

The Malaysian Bar in response argued that the video evidence was accompanied by the testimonies of two witnesses — Gwo Burne and his father Loh Mui Fah — who testified that the incident took place.

Both of them had also testified that the person Lingam was speaking to on the phone at the time the video was recorded was Tun Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim, then the Chief Judge of Malaya.

The Malaysian Bar was represented by lawyer Razlan Hadri Zulkifli.

“It was what Lingam had said that caused him to be in trouble. The disciplinary committee accepted the evidence by Gwo Burne and Mui Fah as they were in Lingam’s house (during the telephone conversation with Ahmad Fairuz),” he was quoted as saying.

The case was presided by Justice Kamaludin Md Said. The court has fixed April 2 for decision.