The Kuala Lumpur High Court today ruled that Dr Ling Liong Sik’s lawyers are not allowed to have the whole recorded statement of former tourism minister Abdul Kadir Sheikh Fadzir for the prosecution’s purpose of impeaching this witness.

azlan In a trial-within-a-trial of the Port Klang Free Zone cheating case, Justice Ahmadi Asnawi also decided not to allow Abdul Kadir’s lawyer Chong Loong Leng to address the court, but allowed the lawyer to ask questions to his client during the impeachment proceedings and also that he be given a copy of the contended statement only and not the whole statement.

The judge, in his ruling, said that the defence is only allowed to have the portion of Abdul Kadir’s contended statement.

“The defence does not have a right to inspect Abdul Kadir’s entire statement for the purpose of impeachment proceedings. Hence, the defence application is dismissed.”

Ling’s lawyer Wong Kian Kheong wanted to get the whole of Abdul Kadir’s recorded Section 112 statement so that the defence can understand the context and manner it was said.

On Friday, Justice Ahmadi has allowed the application by the prosecution, led by deputy solicitor-general II Tun Abdul Majid Tun Hamzah, to impeach the former tourism minister as there were material conflicts with his recorded statement.

Abdul Kadir had testified that sometimes when the cost of a project escalates the cabinet’s approval need not be sought as it can be gained by the Finance Ministry or the ministry concerned.

Kadir: I was making a general statement

The former tourism minister then explained in court during the impeachment proceedings that when he was interviewed by police over this case, he was making a general statement and his answers were on a general basis.

Abdul Kadir, who also read law, said he does not remember the “nitty gritty” details over the project.

“I consider my response when the police recorded my statement that this was a general question and my answers were also general. When the police asked me the question, I did not concentrate much ( tak kisah sangat ) on the question because I cannot remember.

“Even if you look at this figure (RM1.088 billion, but wrongly written in the recorded statement as RM1.088 million) from the papers shown to me by the lawyers and the prosecutors in the trial. My response was generally that it must appear as the final price,” he said.

Explaining himself further, Kadir said it was not wise for the cabinet to bind itself too stringently until there is no room to make changes or maneuver in arriving at the decision as there will be new information.

“There are rooms for the cabinet to make the changes and this has happened repeatedly. If there is a change, normally it would be brought back to the cabinet. But this is not always the case,” he stressed.

azlan “If it is brought back time and again PM (Dr Mahathir Mohamad) or the other cabinet ministers will state not to waste the cabinet's time”.

In this case, he said the documents were showed to him including the annex and attachments and this was only highlighted by the defence counsel.

If not, Abdul Kadir said the matter would have slipped his mind.

Abdul Kadir added that he could not remember anything about what was said as there were too many cabinet matters, and the matter (PKFZ case) was not under his ministry.

To this, Justice Ahmadi commented, “but you are part of the decision-making process” to which Abdul Kadir replied that was a long time ago.

“For me, sometimes the cabinet made decisions based on memorandum, and also notes regarding the acquisition of land. It must have gone through or was vetted under a stringent process,” he said.

This was followed by further questions by Wong, Tun Abdul Majid as well as Chong.

Justice Ahmadi then decided to hear submissions on the trial-within-a-trial on the impeachment proceeding at the end of the case.

Dr M: I told police I was not cheated in PKFZ case