KUALA LUMPUR, July 22 — The High Court today granted leave to Syed Saddiq Syed Abdul Rahman’s defence as they attempt to secure the star witness’ Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) statement in what would be their first steps towards getting the latter impeached.
Lawyer Gobind Singh Deo requested the court examine the entirety of Rafiq Hakim Razali’s statement that was recorded by the MACC because several portions appeared to be contradictory to his statement in court.
“We are asking the court to look at it as we have a hunch there are discrepancies and the court can decide what they want to give to us, and the rest of the statement can be blanked out. We just want the particular parts that we highlighted,” Gobind said during the trial at the Kuala Lumpur High Court today.
Deputy public prosecutor Datuk Wan Shaharuddin Wan Ladin agreed that Rafiq had indeed contradicted himself but added Syed Saddiq’s defence need not move to impeach him since it had already been shown in court.
“We may need to treat the witness as hostile during impeachment proceedings and we have already mentioned there are discrepancies. So why do we need to impeach?” he asked.
All the MACC’s interviews while recording statements are protected by the Official Secrets Act.
Upon hearing arguments from both sides for close to two hours, Judicial Commissioner Datuk Azhar Abdul Hamid said he would like some time to scrutinise the matter and asked that they return on July 25 for his ruling.
This is the second time that the defence is asking to impeach Rafiq.
On July 7, they had sought to impeach him because his oral testimony in court differed from his MACC written statement which was prepared by a MACC official.
Azhar, however, said they could not impeach the former Bersatu assistant treasurer based on a single document.
Rafiq is the main witness for the prosecution in this trial where Syed Saddiq is accused of abetting Rafiq to withdraw RM1 million in funds belonging to the Bersatu Youth wing.
He is alleged to have committed the offence at CIMB Bank Bhd, Menara CIMB KL Sentral, Jalan Stesen Sentral 2, here on March 6, 2020, He is also charged with misusing property for himself, namely RM120,000 from the Maybank Islamic Bhd account belonging to Armada Bumi Bersatu Enterprise by causing Rafiq to dispose of the money at Malayan Banking Berhad, Jalan Pandan 3/6A, Taman Pandan Jaya here between April 8 and 21, 2018.
He also faces two counts of engaging in money laundering activities, namely two transactions of RM50,000, believed to be proceeds of unlawful activities, from his Maybank Islamic Bhd account into his Amanah Saham Bumiputera account, on June 16 and 19, 2018.
Rafiq had previously testified that he was told by Syed Saddiq to withdraw the money from the bank as the money belonged to him from his efforts to raise funds for campaigning in his Muar constituency.
Gobind, however, accused Rafiq of being coached by the deputy public prosecutor and MACC officers on what to say in the trial so he would implicate Syed Saddiq which led to the impeachment request.
