Pahang Umno secretary Abdul Rahim Abbas has been accused of lying in court about the Pahang Umno's ownership of a 10,000-acre plot of land in Nenasi, near Pekan, Pahang.
 
The allegation was made today by Lee Sin ( left ), a former director and current shareholder in Seruan Gemilang Makmur Sdn Bhd, a logging firm, that has been embroiled in a legal tussle with both Pahang Umno and the Pahang state government regarding the license to log the Nenasi plot.
 
In a further twist in the long-running logging saga which has raised plenty of questions about the ownership of the land , which has been mostly cleared due to logging activities, Lee told a press conference in Petaling Jaya today that the land had in fact never belonged to Pahang Umno.
 
The land was believed to have been handed to the state Umno by former Pahang Menteri Besar Khalil Yaacob in 1998, but Lee said today that the offer to register Umno Pahang as the owners of the land has elapsed due to the party dragging its feet in paying the land premium.
 
"It was a suggestion for the land to be under Pahang Umno's name, but offer lapsed when they could not pay the premium. The fact is, the land has never been with Pahang Umno," Lee said today.
 
"Abdul Rahim knows the land is not theirs. Yet he lied," Lee added.

Who owns the land?

 
He claimed that the land had been taken back by state authorities back in 2003 after Umno failed to pay the premium, though the exact ownership of the land today is still unclear.
 
Lee had yesterday lodged a police report against Abdul Rahim, naming the latter because Abdul Rahim had testified in court that the land belonged to Pahang Umno.
 
Lee also said that he has his doubts as to whether Abdul Rahim was acting individually and not on behalf of Pahang Umno in the party's counter claim proceeding demanding RM72 million from Seruan Gemilang.
 
"I don't think he had the consent of Pahang Umno in doing this. I want him to come and visit the Nenasi land for himself and see who owns it," Lee said today.
 
The long-running saga started with Seruan Gemilang suing the Pahang state government and the Forestry Department for the latter's refusal to grant them a logging license despite an agreement between Pahang Umno (as landowners) and Seruan Gemilang.

Counter suit

 
The company won the case, and were awarded RM37 million, an amount that the state is yet to pay, which has now inflated to RM80 million due to interests.
 
The company also filed a similar suit against Pahang Umno, as the landowners, for breach of the logging contract, but they had struck off the suit after the case against the state had been won.
 
However, Pahang Umno filed a counter-claim suit in which they claimed that no agreement existed between them and the company.
 
As such, the party demanded all logging profits to be given to the party instead, with the initial benefit claim amounting to RM1.5 million.
 
The party is also demanding to be the beneficiary of all the payment due to the company from the state government in the earlier suit.
 
Pahang Umno had won the case, and now have served Seruan Gemilang with a wind-up notice over the RM1.5 million.
 
The company intends to appeal the earlier ruling, but now must first face a High Court trial over the wind-up notice which, if allowed, would close down the company and make any appeal process null and void.
 
The wind-up notice served by Pahang Umno's lawyers is over the non-payment of the RM1.5 million awarded to the party by the court earlier on.

Flashback: Satellite photos confirm widespread logging on Umno’s land