KUALA LUMPUR, March 5 — Umno treasurer Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor today declared in court that the political party’s Federal Territories chapter never records political donations received, claiming that this was due to the need to keep the information out of the wrong hands.
Tengku Adnan was testifying in his own defence during his bribery trial over a businessman’s RM2 million cheque that was given to his company Tadmansori Holdings in 2016, an amount which Tengku Adnan insists was a “political donation” given to Federal Territories Umno for its expenses in the 2016 by-elections in Sungai Besar and Kuala Kangsar.
When asked by his lawyer Datuk Tan Hock Chuan to clarify his response when cross-examined earlier by the prosecution, Tengku Adnan reaffirmed that Federal Territories Umno where he was chief kept no records of political donations.
Tan: In cross-examination, you were asked whether there are records of donations in Federal Territories Umno, and you said, no, my question is why?
Tengku Adnan: We never record political donations.
Tan: Ok, that’s what you said. Do you have a reason for that or you don’t have a reason?
Tengku Adnan: We don’t have a reason but we normally never record political donations because we do not want it to fall into other hands. That’s the reason why we never record political donations.
Asked by High Court judge Mohamed Zaini Mazlan if he meant that Umno did not want the information to fall into the “wrong hands”, Tengku Adnan agreed.
Earlier this morning, Tengku Adnan told the prosecution that Federal Territories Umno did not keep any records of Chai’s alleged political donation of RM2 million.
Tengku Adnan had this morning insisted that the 2016 receipt issued to Chai for the RM2 million was genuine, despite it being pointed out by the prosecution that the receipt was issued from Umno’s receipt book that contained receipts starting from 2017 until 2018.
The prosecution had also highlighted that the purported Umno receipt dated 2016 had the serial number 376241, which meant it was sandwiched between two receipts dated 2018 in the receipt book.
The prosecution also noted that the purported 2016 receipt came before the receipt dated November 16, 2018 which was just two days after Tengku Adnan’s arrest by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) over this bribery case, but Tengku Adnan denied that this suggested the receipt to Chai was created after his 2018 arrest.
But Tengku Adnan affirmed this afternoon his earlier insistence that the 2016 receipt was not a forgery.
“No, how can it be a forged document? It cannot be a forged document, because it comes from Umno. We got it from Umno. It comes from Umno and as I’ve said earlier, in FT Umno I would give receipts to all donors,” he said, having said this morning however that FT Umno destroys all copies of such receipts as it does not keep records of political donations.
The Umno receipt book which was allegedly used to issue the RM2 million receipt contains receipts in three copies — the original copy and two carbon copies for filing and office use, with Chai previously unexpectedly producing his copy of the alleged receipt during trial without informing investigators earlier on that he had the receipt.
When asked by Tan to explain why he had insisted that the RM2 million was a political donation despite it being banked into Tadmansori Holdings instead of Umno, Tengku Adnan decided not to disclose his reasons.
Tan: In cross-examination, it was suggested to you that if the RM2 million was for the two by-elections, the money would have been deposited into the Umno FT account and you disagreed, you also commented the DPP did not know how political parties operate. Can you explain what you were trying to say?
Tengku Adnan: I understand the question, I’m just wondering if I should reveal it here, because there’s a lot of things which I have said earlier which we cannot disclose. Because political donation as you know, we don’t want information to fall into the wrong hands. We are very careful with all this sort of information, so I don’t know how to answer you. I think I would reserve that, I wouldn’t disclose.
Tengku Adnan’s trial before High Court judge Mohamed Zaini Mazlan will resume on March 25, with March 26 and March 27 also scheduled for trial.
Tan said three defence witnesses will be called to testify in Tengku Adnan’s defence, but has not disclosed their names at this point in time.
