KOTA KINABALU, March 3 — Criminal breach of trust allegations against former minister Datuk Darell Leiking involving a plot of land in the Kudat Riviera luxury project are false, his lawyers said.
They said the claim that lawyer Marcel Jude Joseph made in a police report against the former international trade and industry minister was baseless, noting he made a similar allegation in a case that was thrown out of court earlier this year.
“Much earlier to the police report lodged, Marcel had already initiated a civil action in his sole name sometime in June 2020 in the Sessions Court at Kota Kinabalu making similar allegations and asking the Sessions Court to order the native lands concerned to be transferred to him alone,” said lawyers for the Penampang MP.
“Leiking had defended the action strenuously and had applied to strike out Marcel’s claim for disclosing no reasonable cause of action or it is scandalous, frivolous or vexatious or it is otherwise an abuse of the process of the Court,” the lawyers said the statement.
In January 2021, the Sessions Court struck out Marcel’s suit with costs.
“Since then Marcel has appealed the decision to the High Court. We are confident that he will be able to likewise succeed at the appeal,” said the statement.
The police report that is being spread on social media named a British national as the supposed recipient of a piece of land purchased in 2007 under a Native Title that Leiking purportedly held in trust.
The land was under a luxury development project known as Kudat Riviera that has since changed hands.
Marcel claimed in the report dated March 2 that he had been appointed by the Briton to recover the title from Leiking after the sale but that Leiking refused.
