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KUALA LUMPUR: The Court of Sessions today dismissed the requests of two former directors of the confectionery company Silver Bird Group Bhd to drop their charges of providing false information to authorities.
Judge Hasbullah Adam said that the facts of the current charges against Ching Siew Cheong and Tan Han Kook under Section 369 (b) (B) of the Capital Markets and Services Act were different from their previous criminal case.
The men were acquitted by the Court of Appeal in June on the charge of defrauding a bank of RM67.4 million using forged documents.
Tan and Ching argued that since the appeals court had ruled that they were unaware of the forged documents, the current charges under Section 369 (b) (B) should be dropped.
However, Hasbullah said the discovery of the facts in the first cheating case “is not binding on me.”
“In the current case, both defendants are being tried for a crime in which it was said that they provided false information to Bursa Malaysia,” he said.
He said Tan and Ching could still present their defense and dispute the evidence presented to the court on the Capital Markets and Services Act charges.
“Their rights will not be harmed,” added the judge.
The trial will resume on December 16 and 17.
Deputy Prosecutor Mohd Hafiz Yusoff told the court that the prosecution will call five or six more witnesses before closing their case.
Teh See Khoon and N Sivananthan appeared for Tan and Ching, respectively.
Known after today’s trial, Hafiz said 34 witnesses had testified since the trial began on September 7, 2016.
Tan and Ching were slapped with seven and eight counts, respectively, for providing false statements related to Silver Bird’s earnings in 2010 and 2011 to Bursa Malaysia.
If found guilty, both may be punished by a prison term not exceeding 10 years and a fine not exceeding RM3 million.
