KUALA LUMPUR: DAP chairman Lim Guan Eng has received the highly sought-after forensic digital analysis of a WhatsApp conversation between two businessmen linked to his corruption trial.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Farah Yasmin Salleh said the prosecution had handed over the document to the former finance minister on the same day the court made the order last month.
Lim's counsel Haijan Omar confirmed this before Sessions Court judge Azura Alwi today.
The chat was between Consortium Zenith Construction Sdn Bhd (CZCSB) director Datuk Zarul Ahmad Mohd Zulkifli and G. Gnanaraja involving RM2 million bribes purportedly meant for the Bagan member of parliament.
The former Penang chief minister, all this while, had been seeking to produce the document in his trial for allegedly soliciting graft in the Penang undersea tunnel project.
The mention of the forensic digital analysis of a WhatsApp message thread came to light in September last year, when Gobind told Azura that a similar message thread between Zarul and Gnaraja had been extracted from Zarul's handphone and produced in a separate trial in Shah Alam.
However, the prosecution argued that the document was not related to Lim's ongoing trial.
Lim's counsel Gobind Singh Deo claimed that the prosecution had suppressed evidence relating to Lim's corruption charges by not providing the defence with the document.
Gobind said the WhatsApp conversation would prove that the prosecution witness in Lim's trial had indeed lied in court.
On April 5, Azura in her judgment said that the documents were necessary, desirable as well as important to his defence.
She said the court was satisfied in its finding that there were two different versions of evidence produced in a case at Shah Alam court, involving Gnanaraja and the court here, that referred to the same payment voucher and Public Bank cheque.
She said the two different versions of evidence was in regards to the purpose of the money given and to whom the RM2 million was handed to.
She said the court also found that the documents requested via the application that was filed under Section 51 of the Criminal Procedure Code was relevant in accordance to Section 5 and 11 of the Evidence Act 1950.
Therefore, she said, comprehensive facts must be presented and submitted to this court so that the truth would prevail.
Lim is facing four charges of using his position as the then chief minister to solicit gratification to help Consortium Zenith Construction 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 of to two companies linked to the tunnel project.