KUALA LUMPUR: The Sessions Court today ordered the eighth prosecution witness in the Lim Guan Eng corruption trial to produce a digital copy of a WhatsApp conversation between two businessmen linked to the trial.
This was after lead defence counsel Gobind Singh Deo said a similar message thread between Beijing Urban Construction Group (BUCG) managing director Datuk Zarul Ahmad Mohd Zulkifli and businessman G. Gnanaraja had been extracted from Zarul's handphone and produced in a separate trial in Shah Alam, believably involving the latter.
Sessions Court judge Azura Alwi also ordered the witness, Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commissioner (MACC) forensics department investigating officer Wan Mohd Firdaus Wan Yusof, to provide details of the MACC officer who had prepared the report used in the Shah Alam trial.
She also allowed Gobind's application to have the documents handed over by the deputy public prosecutors if they managed to obtain the documents earlier than the fixed date.
She then fixed Oct 19 for Wan Firdaus to produce the matter in court.
Earlier, Wan Firdaus had agreed with Gobind's suggestion that there was a separate forensic report produced, from the same handphone extracted.
He testified that the report was produced by another officer from the same department, for the Shah Alam trial.
Gobind then put it to the court that the defence was aware that the report produced in the Shah Alam trial was a completed Whatsapp thread between the two businessmen, whereas the same message thread presented in this case was messages extracted of a limited timeframe.
Wan Firdaus had previously testified on Sept 24 last year, in Lim's corruption involving the Penang undersea tunnel project.
Previously, he said he had conducted a forensic test on Gnanaraja's handphone to extract the messages exchanged between him and Zarul.
Lim is facing four charges of using his position as the then chief minister to solicit gratification to help Consortium Zenith Construction to secure the tunnel project.
He is alleged to have sought 10 per cent of the profit to be made by the company from its owner, Zarul.
He is also accused of receiving RM3.3 million for himself and causing two plots of land belonging to the state government to be disposed to two companies linked to the tunnel project.