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Razlan Hadri, counsel for the Malaysian Bar

KUALA LUMPUR: Proceedings of the Inquiry into the Lingam Video Clip resumed at 2.35 this afternoon with the continued questioning of its 6th witness.

The former Chief Secretary to the Government, Tan Sri Samsuddin Osman, took the stand to answer questions posed by Razlan Hadri, one of the counsel for the Malaysian Bar.

Tan Sri Samsuddin testified that correspondences between the chief justice and the prime minister are official secret documents that even the ministers and deputy ministers of the Malaysian cabinet have no access to. Tan Sri Samsuddin said this when the question was posed with regard to a letter dated 5 December 2001, which was written by Tun Dr Mahathir to Tun Dzaiddin, stating his agreement that Datuk Heliliah, Datuk Ramly Ali and Datuk Ahmad Maarop be appointed as High Court judges.

When questioned as to whether the Prime Minister discussed matters on appointment of judges with Tengku Adnan and Tan Sri Vincent Tan, Tan Sri Samsuddin said that he does not know and that he was never privy to such discussions. As to whether the consultation process on matters relating to appointment of judges between the prime minister and the chief justice took place in the form of oral discussions or meetings apart from letters, Tan Sri Samsuddin said that as far as he was aware, during his tenure as the Chief Secretary, the consultation process took place via letters.

To a question posed by M. Puravalen, counsel for Dato’ Seri Anwar Ibrahim, Sivarasa Rasiah and Sim Tze Tzen, Tan Sri Samsuddin Osman confirmed that he had never spoken to Tun Dzaiddin on issues relating to the appointment of judges. Puravalen then requested to have it on record that Tan Sri Samsuddin has never spoken to Tun Dzaiddin on the appointment of Malek Ahmad as President of the Court of Appeal.

After the witness was released, Alex De Silva addressed the Commission and informed members of the Commission that he is acting for Loh Gwo Burne (the one who filmed the video clip). Loh Gwo Burne is the son of businessman Loh Mui Fah who has given evidence on the 2nd day of the Inquiry.

Alex De Silva informed that Loh Gwo Burne is presently in the country and is willing and able to testify before the Commission. Tan Sri Haidar then directed Alex De Silva to liaise with DPP Dato’ Nordin as to when Loh Gwo Burne should attend court to testify before the Commission.

The next witness called was Pushpa Al Bakri Devadason, who was at the material time a deputy director at the personnel department of the Federal Court. Dato’ Azmi informed members of the Commission that the purpose of this witness was to tender service records of Tun Ahmad Fairuz, Datuk Heliliah, Datuk Ramly Ali and Datuk Ahmad Maarop.

Pushpa gave evidence on the dates as to when Tun Ahmad Fairuz was made the Chief Judge of Malaya, the acting President of the Court of Appeal and his confirmed appointment as the President of the Court of Appeal. Dato’ Azmi then proceeded to tender service records of Datuk Heliliah, Datuk Ramly Ali and Datuk Ahmad Maarop, and Pushpa gave evidence on the dates when they were appointed as High Court judges.

At this juncture, Datuk Shankar interjected to question whether there was a necessity to tender the service records of these judges when the prosecution’s intention was merely to adduce evidence on the dates of their appointment as judges. Datuk Shankar went on to say that oral testimony from Pushpa would have sufficed and there was no need to adduce the service records, which contain very personal information, as evidence.

Tan Sri Haidar then directed that all the judges’ services records, with the exception of that of Tun Ahmad Fairuz, to be returned to the prosecution.

The last witness for the day was Moses a/l Lawrence, an ACA officer, who was to give evidence on recordings of the voice samples in the DVD and CD formats that were tendered as evidence in the 2nd day of the Inquiry.

Moses testified that he had recorded the voice sample, which is in the CD format, from Dato' VK Lingam at the latter’s residence on 7 January 2008 and that Dato' Lingam had read from the transcript (of the Video Clip) for about 15 minutes.

He had thereafter recorded a total number of 22 other voice samples from a mixture of Chinese, Indian and Malay persons. After having marked and initialed on the CD and DVD, they were then handed to Wan Zulkifli bin Wan Jusoh, the head of the forensic technology division of the ACA.

The witness was then released and the proceedings for the day ended at about 3.30 p.m.

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