FRIENDSHIP’ TURNED NIGHTMARE?

By : FMT STAFF

KOTA KINABALU: The Sabah Chief Minister’s office is keenly watching an ongoing court case involving a businessman who Chief Minister Musa Aman has previously claimed he did not know.

The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) case against one Michael Chia Tien Foh has got Musa’s office sufficiently hot and bothered that it has even 'advised' the mainstream media to avoid mention of the case, sources said.

Most have taken the advisory to heart and there is little news in the mainstream media that the MACC case against the businessman was winding its way through the courts until one newspaper unexpectedly published a court decision that Musa’s bogeyman must face trial.

The Sabah Chief Minister has been haunted by the controversial businessman since 2008 when he was arrested in Hong Kong as he was about to exit the country with a bag stuffed with cash amounting to some S$16 million.

In the subsequent investigations, Chia reportedly told the Hong Kong’s Independent Commission on Anti-Corruption (ICAC) that the money was not his and actually belonged to Musa.

Musa, who also heads Umno in resource-rich Sabah, is still the subject of ongoing concurrent investigations in Malaysia, Hong Kong, Singapore and Switzerland involving a Swiss UBS bank account under his name that allegedly has $100 million.

The Swiss prosecutor has stated that the government would freeze the account if the Malaysian government requested they do so.

Recently Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak revealed that investigation reports on the Musa’s cases were with the Attorney-General Gani Patail.

But the opposition has grabbed hold of the scandal and refuses to let go, alleging that the trail of alleged illegal dealings leads right into Najib’s office.

Chia ordered to enter defence

PKR vice president, Tian Chua, has claimed that leaked MACC investigation papers disclosed that the Sabah Chief Minister told investigators that the 100 million dollars under his name in the UBS account was not his but Umno’s and as such directly implicates Najib.

Now that the controversial Sabah businessman has been ordered to enter his defence on a charge of attempting to cheat another local businessman over the right to log and extract commercial timber at the Kalabakan Forest Reserve, Musa is furtively watching the case.

On Aug 24, Sandakan High Court judge Supang Lian set aside the acquittal of Chia by the Sessions Court and set Sept 12 for the mention of Chia’s case at the Sessions Court.

Supang, in allowing the prosecution’s appeal against Chia on Aug 24, however, dismissed the prosecution’s appeal against the acquittal of another businessman Lo Man Heng jointly charged with Chia ruling that the link between Lo and the offence had not been established.

Both Chia and Lo, who were charged under Section 420 of Penal Code, had been acquitted by the Sessions Court on Sept 23 last year without their defence being called.

The two were charged with attempting to cheat one Agus Hassan of Syarikat Peluamas Sdn Bhd by deceiving him into believing that there were three conditions that had to be fulfilled in order to obtain the letter concerning the logging operation of Coupe BW12/02: Extraction and Purchasing of Commercial Timber at Kalabakan Forest Reserve.

According to the charge, the three conditions were namely to surrender back the purchase of 100,000 cubic metres of logs signed on May 23, 2004 to Rakyat Berjaya Sdn Bhd /Innoprise Corporation Sdn Bhd, a subsidiary of Yayasan Sabah.

The second condition was to pay RM3 million as political funds to Umno Sabah and the third condition was to pay a commission of RM25 per cubic metre on logs extracted by Sysrikat Peluamas Sdn Bhd at Gunung Rara Forest Reserve (Benta Wawasan Coupe).

The charge stated that they had dishonestly induced Agus through one Chong Siak Nyen to deliver a Power of Attorney dated June 22, 2004 that gave the purchasing of 100,000 metric cube of logs to a company allegedly owned by Parti Umno Sabah and pay RM2.5mil allegedly to for Parti Umno Sabah’s political fund. The offences were allegedly committed in June 2004.

MACC deputy public prosecutor Anthony Kevin Morais and Joyce Blaisus represented the prosecution while Chia and Lo were represented by Francis Wong and James Tsai respectively.

According to some of those following the case, all of whom refused to speak on the record as they were recounting private discussions and offering criticism, one editor allegedly so upset to be at the receiving end of a lambasting from Musa’s office for publishing the prosecutors statement on the case, the person requested they issue a clarification. (FMT)