Judge unwell, Bung Moktar-Zizie Izette's corruption trial postponed to May 9

KUALA LUMPUR: The corruption trial of Kinabatangan Member of Parliament Datuk Seri Bung Moktar Radin and his wife, Datin Seri Zizie Izette Abdul Samad involving Felcra's RM150 million investment in Public Mutual Berhad's unit trusts at the Sessions Court here has been postponed to May 9 as the judge was unwell.

The judge's health situation was disclosed by deputy public prosecutor Law Chin How when the case was mentioned before Judge Azura Alwi.

"Judge Rozina Ayob (who hears the case) is unwell and has been given a week of sick leave. So, we are requesting new dates to resume the trial," he said.

The court then set the new dates on May 9, 10, 17 and 18.

Both Bung Moktar and Zizie Izette were present in court today.

Today, the court was supposed to decide on Zizie Izette's lawyer's objection to the information provided by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) officer Mohd Haris Ibrahim, which was said to be hearsay and could be prejudicial to Bung Moktar.

On May 3, 2019, Bung Moktar, 64, pleaded not guilty to two charges of accepting bribes amounting to RM2.2 million and RM262,500 as an inducement to obtain Felcra's approval to invest RM150 million in Public Mutual unit trusts.

Bung Moktar, who was the non-executive chairman of Felcra at the time, was accused of accepting bribes from Public Mutual Berhad's investment agent Madhi Abdul Hamid through Zizie Izette at Public Bank's Taman Melawati branch here between 12.30 pm and 5 pm on June 12, 2015.

He also pleaded not guilty to accepting an RM335,500 cash bribe from Norhaili under the name of Zizie Izette for similar reasons, at the same place on June 19, 2015, while Zizie Izette, 44, pleaded not guilty to three charges of abetting her husband in the matter at the same place, date and time.

-- BERNAMA