Deputy public prosecutor Masri Mohd Daud arriving at court for the proceedings today. Bernama Photo
GEORGE TOWN: The High Court, here, today set 34 days from March 27 to July 21, 2017 to hear the corruption case of Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng and businesswoman Phang Li Koon over the purchase of a bungalow below the market value and will call 60 prosecution witnesses.
Judge Datuk Hadhariah Syed Ismail ordered that the prosecution and defence complete their documents fast and did not want the case to be postponed.
“I do not want to hear anymore problems about documents after this, a period of two months should be sufficient.
“In view of the 60 prosecution witnesses (to be called), I do not want the trial dates changed. But if there’s a need to add new dates, (I) allow it in view of the number of witnesses,” she said.
The judge said the dates given by the court could not be amended also because it had been agreed upon by the prosecution and defence.
The dates for the case hearing are March 27-31, April 10-14, April 24-28, May 15-19, May 29-June 2, June 13-16, and July 17-21, next year.
Judge Hadhariah set the dates after the case management today. Both the accused, Lim and Phang, were not present as they were allowed to be exempted from attending today’s proceeding.
The court also fixed next Jan 6 for case management for the prosecution to complete all their final documents.
Earlier, counsel Gobind Singh Deo, representing Lim, informed the court that the defence had received the complete documents from the prosecution last week, however, some matters needed to be studied further.
Gobind also asked the court to exempt Lim and Phang from being present in court on Jan 6 and the judge allowed it.
Outside the court, Gobind said the defence had to peruse the documents again as there were those with missing pages while some documents were copied twice.
On June 30, Lim pleaded not guilty to two corruption charges involving changing of land status from agriculture zone to housing zone, and the purchase of a housing lot and bungalow below the market price. – Bernama