Veteran journalist M.G.G. Pillai today said that he handed over copies of the photographs purportedly showing Chief Justice Eusoff Chin and prominent lawyer V.K Lingam holidaying together in New Zealand to British private investigator Don McCarthy during a meeting in Kuala Lumpur two years ago.

"I met him at the Shangri-La Hotel lounge three times in 1998. The meetings were basically about the photographs which were already in circulation then. I gave him five photographs," Pillai said when contacted by malaysiakini today.

McCarthy is managing director of UK-based private investigation agency Bowman Investigations which was apparently commissioned by some insurance companies and a law firm in early 1998 to obtain evidence in relation to corruption, improper associations and other matters in relation to the judiciary in Malaysia to assist litigation involving the law firm.

Evidence from two reports written by McCarthy - one dated March 2, 1998 and another dated April 21, 1998 - appear to contradict Eusoff's assertion last week that he coincidentally "bumped" into Lingam while holidaying in New Zealand.

According to the reports, Eusoff and Lingam flew together with their families for their Christmas holiday in New Zealand in 1994.

Copies of Eusoff's itinerary and Lingam's counterfoil air tickets, which Bowman's team of investigators said they obtained, allegedly show that both took the same flight from Singapore to Auckland, and within New Zealand.

The five photographs which were posted on the Internet has been the cause of much debate within legal circles in Malaysia as to the independence of the judiciary.

Pillai claimed there were 36 photographs of the holiday relating to the two families. He however, only received five.

The photographs, he said, were anonymously dropped into his mailbox on Jan 11, 1998.

"It was a day before the Federal Court was scheduled to hear my appeal. I promptly made a hundred copies of each photograph, which I later distributed at the courthouse during a break in the hearing," he said.

Pillai is currently awaiting a judgment by the Federal Court after High Court judge Mokhtar Sidin ordered him to pay RM2 million to Berjaya Group's chief Vincent Tan for defamation in a series of articles he wrote in business magazine Malaysian Industry .

The three-member bench, headed by Chin, also include judges Chong Siew Fai and Wan Adnan Ismail.

However, at the hearing, Chin was asked by the defence to step down for reason of his relationship with Lingam, who was acting for Tan. He refused, giving rise to a number of troubling questions among the legal fraternity.

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