Today I attended the long-awaited trial between me and Jamal Yunos at the KL High Court.
On 8 March 2017, Jamal Yunos had blatantly accused me for misappropriated RM2 million of YAWAS funds. YAWAS is a social welfare agency under the Selangor state government.
Prior to that, Jamal Yunos had also lodged a report against me to MACC. MACC officers then raided and seized all the documents related to the distribution of funds of Yawas, namely, Skim Mesra Usia Emas (SMUE) from my service center.
My staff Alice Lan and I have been interrogated by MACC officers for 2-3 times subsequently at MACC office. But MACC did not take any action against us as there was no case at all and later returned all the seized documents.
To my surprise and that of my lawyers, Jamal discharged his lawyer yesterday afternoon and informed the court that he wished to represent himself, so today he came to court without lawyer. He then tried to request for a postponement of the trial to enable to him to appoint a new lawyer but the judge had rejected his application as this case has been dragged for too long since 2017. (Over the time Jamal had filed several interlocutory applications that were dismissed one by one which has contributed to this delay).The judge then ordered the trial to be carried out as scheduled.
Jamal is not a lawyer. He did not know how to cross-examine me and the ex-journalist from Malaysiakini Ms.Annabelle in court. He also told the Judge he has no witnesses to offer. So the trial finished in less than an hour.
The judge YA Dato’ Arief Emran then fixed 26 July 2022 for decision.
I pray that the decision will vindicate me. 😇
I thank my lawyers Datuk Sankara Nair and Jaden Phoon for representing me. I thanked YB Tan Kok Wai, YB Lim Lip Eng, all my service center’s assistants and DAP Seputeh members for supporting me in court.