KUALA LUMPUR, July 26 — Hearing for Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi's corruption trial today over the award of a foreign visa system (VLN) contract has been pushed to Friday.
Deputy public prosecutor Datuk Raja Rozela Raja Toran told the High Court this morning that its 18th and final witness — an investigating officer from the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) — was unable to testify in person as he is currently under Covid-19 home quarantine.
“We were just informed late evening yesterday that our witness is down with Covid-19. Therefore, we are unable to call him to the stand today.
“But I wish to ask the court to maintain the hearing dates set for this week as we would like to call the said witness on July 29 if he has fully recovered and tested negative,” she said.
The court had already scheduled Ahmad Zahid’s VLN trial for July 25-29, August 10-12 and August 24.
Judge Datuk Mohd Yazid Mustafa agreed to the prosecution’s request.
Hearing is set to resume at 9am this Friday.
Ahmad Zahid is facing 33 charges of receiving bribes amounting to S$13.56 million (RM42 million) from UKSB as an inducement for himself in his capacity as a civil servant and the then home minister to extend the contract of the company as the operator of the OSCs in China and the VLN system as well as to maintain the agreement to supply VLN integrated system paraphernalia to the same company by the Home Ministry.
For another seven counts, Ahmad Zahid was charged as home minister to have obtained for himself S$1.15 million, RM3 million, €15,000 and US$15,000 in cash from the same company in connection with his official work.
He is charged with committing all the offences at Seri Satria, Presint 16, Putrajaya, and Country Heights, Kajang, between October 2014 and March 2018.
