PUTRAJAYA (Feb 8): The Court of Appeal has set Feb 21 to announce its decision on whether to proceed with the sentencing of four former directors of Genneva Sdn Bhd, or cancel their conviction and initiate a re-hearing of the appeal by a fresh panel.

The court set the new date after a defence counsel argued that sentencing the ex-directors based on the original 224 counts of money laundering would be illegal, as the number of charges has been reduced today.

The 224 charges against Datuk Chin Wai Leong, 42, Ng Poh Weng, 68, Marcus Yee Yuen Seng, 66, and Liew Chee Wah, 64 — as well as Genneva — included 68 overlapping charges.  

The number of charges was reduced to 156 after both the defence and prosecution teams combed through the charges made under Section 25(1) of the Banking and Financial Institutions Act 1989 (BAFIA) and Section 4(1) of the Anti-Money Laundering and Anti-Terrorism Financing Act 2001 (AMLA).

The three-man panel led by Justice Mohtarudin Baki with Datuk Seri Zakaria Sam and Datuk Abdul Karim Abdul Jalil ordered the lawyers to submit-in-writing before Feb 15 based on the reduced charges, following which the panel will make its decision known.

Earlier, Chin’s counsel Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah told the court that it should not mete out a sentence based on the original 224 charges.

“I appeal for the court to vary the charges, and remit the appeal to a fresh hearing with a new quorum (panel). The defence officially made its submission based on 224 charges and you have convicted.

“(However), can the court remit the matter on the purity of judicial powers? We cannot blame the panel because we ourselves were misled,” Shafee added.

On Dec 12, the Appeals Court found Chin, Ng, Yee and Liew guilty based on the 224 counts of money laundering.

They were also convicted on five counts of illegal deposit-taking, involving more than RM100 million.

Besides Shafee, Chin was also represented by Datuk Nicholas Kow, Emile Ezra Hussain and Reny Rao. Counsel Keppy Wong appeared for Liew,  and Gooi Soon Seng for Yee, Ng and Genneva.

The prosecution team was led by DPP Hamdan Hamzah who submitted that the current panel of judges should carry on with sentencing because the Sessions Court and High Court had already heard the matter based on the original charges.

Mohtarudin, however, sounded the prosecution team for ‘messing up’ the charges while chiding the defence team for not raising the irregularity during the appeals submission last year.

This case can be traced back to as early as July 21, 2009, when Bank Negara Malaysia began investigations on Genneva on suspicion of illegal deposit-taking activities.

The four ex-directors were then charged in the Sessions Court. The court acquitted them in May 2013, and the decision was upheld by the High Court on Sept 20, 2016. The prosecution then appealed to the Court of Appeal.