The High Court in Shah Alam ordered the producer of TV3's prime-time news, Buletin Utama , to explain a news item which a lawyer in the trial of the murder of cosmetics millionaire Sosilawati Lawiya and three others claimed was a personal attack on him.

Judge Akhtar Tahir made the order following an application by the lawyer, Manjeet Singh Dhillon, representing the first accused, N Pathmanabhan.

Yesterday, the court allowed an application by Manjeet for a reporter and an editor of Utusan Malaysia to come to the court to explain an article on the same issue.

The lawyer said that the news item, which had the same content as the article by Utusan Malaysia , titled ‘ Manjeet selalu burukkan kerajaan’ (Manjeet always smears government), was from an interview by reporter Raja Syahrir Abu Bakar with Padang Serai MP N Gobalakrishnan.

Manjeet said the news item was watched nationwide at 8pm on Aug 17, including by his lawyer friends Amer Hamzah Arshad and Ng See Teong.

    

Akhtar said an order had been issued for Raja Syahrir and the editor of Utusan Malaysia to come to the court next week.

Yesterday, Manjeet drew the court’s attention to the publication of the article in Utusan Malaysia which he claimed were subjudice because the trial was  still ongoing.

Meanwhile, deputy chief of Selayang police station, Sgt-Major Ranjit Singh, 49, told the trial-within-a-trial that T Thilaiyalagan, R Matan and R Kathavarayan - who are the second, third and fourth accused respectively - had never complained to him when he visited the Gombak police lock-up between 3.25am and 3.30pm on Sept 10 last year.

“They looked normal and did not seem to have any health problem,” he said during examination-in-chief by Deputy Public Prosecutor Saiful Edris Zainuddin.

Under cross examinationi by Manjeet, Ranjit admitted that his visit to the lock-up was not recorded although it was a requirement to do so, and said that this could be due to the oversight or that the policeman in charge did not realise his presence there.

‘Impossible for the policeman not to notice him’

Manjeet said however that it was impossible for the policeman not to notice him.

“I put to you that you did not visit (the lock-up), that you come to the court to support the prosecution’s case,” he said, to which Ranjid replied, “No.”

Asked how he carried out lock-up inspections, he said, he would pass by the lock-ups and look at the detainees and that by doing so he would be able to tell if they had problems.

At the close of the trial-within-a-trial today, Akhtar fixed next Friday for both parties to submit on the matter and set Monday to continue with the main trial.

Pathmanabhan, 42, and farm hands Thilaiyalagan, 20, Matan, 21, and K Kathavarayan, 31, are charged with murdering Sosilawati, 47, her driver Kamaruddin Shamsuddin, 47, lawyer Ahmad Kamil Abdul Karim, 32, and CIMB officer Noorhisham Mohammad, 38.

They are alleged to have committed the murders in Jalan Tanjung Layang at Tanjung Sepat in Banting between 8.30pm and 9.45pm on Aug 30 last year.

- Bernama