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Contributed by Brendan Navin Siva and Andrew Khoo Chin Hock

Dato' VK Lingam with former AG, Tan Sri Mokhtar Abdullah, businessman Tan Sri Vincent Tan and their wives in Spain.

• Lingam was definitely sober, says witness
• Lingam: ‘It was not Ahmad Fairuz’
• Lingam: Rejection of two lawyers was common gossip
• Lingam wants NZ holiday details expunged
•  Lingam says friends tell him he talks rubbish when he drinks wine

KUALA LUMPUR: Session 2 of Day 6 of the Royal Commission of Inquiry Into the V.K. Lingam Video Clip started at 2.10 this afternoon.

Proceedings resumed with Dato’ Nordin taking Dato’ Lingam through several sections of the transcript and asking whether the statements therein were true.

The witness said “Not True” or “I don’t remember having said this” to most of the statements referred to him. The witness said he never had a meeting with Tengku Adnan on the appointment of the President of the Court of Appeal.

He did not know that Tun Dzaiddin’s recommendations were rejected but sometime in 2001 he heard from lawyers in court and they discussed who is being promoted and who is retiring. He said he heard from some lawyers that Andrew Chew and Zainudin Ismail and 2 others were being considered sometime in October 2001 and sometime in December 2001 he had heard that Andrew Chew and Zainudin Ismail were rejected.

When questioned how he got this highly confidential information, Dato’ Lingam repeated that he picked up rumours and gossip from lawyers waiting for cases in court. When asked whether he could remember who these lawyers were, he said he talked to so many lawyers. He could not name one.

He said he had never sent any memo to the Prime Minister. He said he did not know anything about the contents of the letters shown to him by Dato’ Nordin but he said it was a common fact that there were 6 vacancies in the Court of Appeal. He denied informing Tengku Adnan to call for a meeting with the PM. He said he never arranged for Tengku Adnan to call the person on the other side of the line.

When asked to explain the words “these people fought for us”, he said he did not know what it means. He denied talking to Tan Sri Vincent Tan to put Tun Ahmad Fairuz as Chief Justice. When referred to the words “old man”, he said he did know who it was a reference to. When queried by Datuk Shankar whether the witness is saying he did not say it or does not know who was being referred to, the witness said he does not know who was being referred to. And when asked whether he did say it, the witness said he cannot remember having said this.

Dato’ Lingam said he did not remember Thayalan ever telling him what Raja Aziz said in court. When the witness answered “I don’t remember having said this” to several questions, Datuk Shankar said the inference may be that the witness may have said it. The witness replied that it is possible he may have said this but he cannot remember as it has been 6 years. The witness then answered the next line of questions about the statements in the transcript with the words “I don’t remember having said this”.

The witness then denied having spoken to Tun Ahmad Fairuz on the appointment of judges. He said that he had never influenced any party to appoint Tun Ahmad Fairuz as Chief Judge, President of the Court of Appeal or Chief Justice. He also said that he had never spoken to Tun Dr Mahathir or Tan Sri Vincent Tan about the appointment of judges.

R. Thayalan then posed questions to his client. Documents were tendered to establish the witness had not acted for Loh Mui Fah in any case. Dato’ Lingam said that Mui Fah came to see him as a friend and for business matters and nothing on legal matters. He said Mui Fah visited him as a social friend. The witness said he did not personally know Andrew Chew or Zainudin Ismail or Datuk Heliliah, Dato’ Ahmad Maarop or Datuk Ramly. He said he has never appeared before Dato’ Ahmad Maarop and he has not had any hearings on the merits before Datuk Ramly. He said he had one case before Datuk Heliliah. He said he did not know as a fact that Tun Dzaiddin was going to recommend 6 judges. He said it was gossip and rumours among lawyers which he picked up. To a question as to how he can surely say he did not speak to Tun Ahmad Fairuz when he cannot recollect the phone conversation, the witness repeated his earlier statement that he had never had Tun Ahmad Fairuz’s phone number and had never spoken to him on the phone.

When asked why he appeared to have said certain things on the video clip, he said that it looked as though there was a drinking session and he may have had one too many drinks. At which point, the witness said his friends say that when he drinks a lot of wine, he talks rubbish. Datuk Shankar then quipped “In vino veritas”. When the witness asked Datuk Shankar to explain what he meant, Datuk Shankar said it meant “there is truth in wine”.

The witness denied that he had been to the Prime Minister’s house and that he had only been to Tun Dr Mahathir’s house after September 2005 when he was engaged to act for him. He said that he has only appeared before Tun Ahmad Fairuz once for a mention on June 16,.2006. Except for this one mention, he said he had never appeared in any other case before him at all. He said Wee Choo Keong’s case was reported in the newspapers and law journals and there was nothing secret about that. When asked whether he knew Manjit Singh, he said Manjit was a close and dear friend. He said Manjit lived near his house and he visited very often for a drink. The witness said he could not confirm whether the photo with Manjit was taken on same day as the video clip. He said Manjit was present on 2 occasions when Mui Fah came to see him. When asked which event took place – the photo or the video clip – he said he normally would have his shirt tucked out when drinking goes on.

Americk Sidhu then posed questions to the witness. He denied that Mui Fah was intrinsically involved in the legal matters of his father. Dato’ Lingam said it was Mui Fah’s father who gave instructions and he collected fees from him and not Mui Fah. He agreed that Mui Fah had sought a refund of fees but he had told him to bring his father as he would only deal with his father. When asked how old the father was, Dato’ Lingam said he was born in 1914 and was 94 years old. He said the last time he had seen the father was in 2002 and he was in good physical condition. He said Mui Fah’s father became his client after an Order was made in Ipoh High Court for him to be produced in Court to ascertain his mental condition. The witness said that the father was in good mental condition. When asked whether Mui Fah had accompanied his father to the office, he said that Thayalan informed him that they did not come for the Ipoh case but they came for a will matter. He reiterated again that Mui Fah was not his client.

Dato’ Lingam said he had no fixed schedule but normally he comes home on a Thursday by 4 or 5 pm but it depends on the circumstances. He said he did not go to pubs before coming home and if drinking he would start at about 8.30 or 9 pm. When asked to confirm that he had had very little to drink at the time of the video clip, he said that there were many bottles of wine and liquor on the table in the video clip and it may be “quite a couple of consumption”. He said that if he drinks two half glasses of wine, he is okay. If he drank more than that he would get tipsy and if he drank even more, he would get drunk and have to go upstairs and fall asleep.

To questions by Alex de Silva, Dato’ Lingam said that Loh Gwo Burne had not visited him on his own and that he was not involved in any of his grandfather’s legal matters. He said that he was not involved in advising Mui Fah or Gwo Burne and never discussed the Ipoh matter with them. He said he cannot remember whether Gwo Burne brought a camera and took any photos on the day. He said that he never had any dispute over fees with Manjit Singh. He said if a CD had been given to Manjit, Manjit would have told him about it because he comes to his house so often.

Robert Lazar then began questioning. He confirmed that when he was admitted to the Bar in August 1988 he was 37 years old. He said he took instructions from both Tan Sri Vincent Tan and Tengku Adnan but for most of the legal work of the Berjaya Group of Companies, he did not see Tan Sri Vincent Tan. Instead he met with in-house legal general managers and executive directors. If it was a very complicated matter, Tan Sri Vincent Tan would want to know about it and he would brief him. He said he did very little work for Tengku Adnan. He said the last occasion when Tengku Adnan gave him instructions was in mid to late 1990s.

He said his relationship with Tan Sri Vincent Tan could be described as close. He confirmed that he had been on holidays with him several times until 1999.

When asked “You are not prepared to say you are the one speaking in the video clip ?”, the witness said “It looks like me and it sounds like me”. He said he was not going to say anything more until the original recording had been verified. When asked “You are prepared to say you are not the person in the video clip ?”, the witness said he was not prepared to say that. When asked “Is there somebody who looks like you and talks like you ?”, he said he does not know.

Dato’ Lingam said that he was close to Tan Sri Mokhtar Abdullah and that he was a friend. He said Tan Sri Mokhtar lived near his house. He said he had been on holiday with him when Tan Sri Mokhtar was the Attorney General. He confirmed that Tan Sri Vincent Tan was also on this holiday in Spain in 1995 or 1996. He said he visited him during Hari Raya twice and there were no private dinners or functions. He said he had been on holiday with Tan Sri Vincent Tan 3 times. Dato’ Lingam said that his relationship with Tun Eusoff Chin was not extremely close. When asked whether it was close, he said “Not close”.

When counsel asked him whether he had been on holiday with Tun Eusoff Chin, Dato’ Lingam said that he wanted his counsel to make a submission at this stage.

Thayalan submitted a full written submission on the relevancy of the evidence pertaining to the New Zealand trip in 1995. He stressed that the terms of reference relate to matters regarding the appointment of judges and the Commission is confined to the terms of reference. He said that the terms of reference cannot be read disjunctively because it was punctuated by semi-colons. He submitted that items 4 and 5 of the terms of reference must be read subject to items 1 – 3. He said any other interpretation would involve a wide investigation of matters involving private persons and enlarge the scope of the terms of reference.

He gave the example of investigating whether there was misbehaviour in Tun Dzaiddin becoming consultant in Skrine merely because his name was mentioned in the video clip. He continued by saying that if the terms of reference was read any other way, it would mean that members of the public may come forward to testify on misbehaviour of any judge mentioned in the video clip. It must therefore be confined to misbehaviour in the appointment of judges, he submitted. He said that establishing the closeness will not in any way help to establish any of the matters in the terms of reference. He said that the evidence of Dato’ Lingam’s brother should also similarly be excluded.

Dato’ Shankar then remarked that the point is really quite simple and he referred to section 11 of the Evidence Act and asked whether or not the contents of the transcript are the subject matter of the terms of reference. Thayalan responded that the transcript is evidence but evidence on closeness in 1995 cannot factually establish closeness for the appointment of judges in 2001.

Robert Lazar in responding to Thayalan’s submissions said the relevancy of the closeness of Dato’ Lingam and Tun Eusoff Chin was beyond doubt. He also said that the relevancy also goes to the identity of the speaker in the video clip. He submitted that the witness is not prepared to say he is the person in the video clip but the speaker in the video clip said he was close to Tun Eusoff Chin. The evidence will therefore go to show the closeness and this is relevant.

Robert Lazar said he would like to reply comprehensively to Thayalan’s submissions and asked for time.

Proceedings were adjourned to 2.30 pm tomorrow and all counsel who wished to submit on the scope of the terms of reference were invited to also make their submissions tomorrow.

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