Thursday 28 Mar 2024
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KUALA LUMPUR (Dec 18): The Kuala Lumpur High Court will hear a RM2 million suit by the widow of a key witness in the Altantuya Shaariibuu murder trial following today’s Court of Appeal ruling that she can file the action in her personal capacity.

A three-man bench chaired by justice Vernon Ong Lam Kiat said A. Santamil Selvi, widow of P. Balasubramaniam, can sue businessman Deepak Jaikishan over his role with seven others in sending her family into exile to India for five years from 2008.

Among the seven are Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak and his wife, Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor.

Ong said the allegations of conspiracy in Santamil’s statement of claim had merit.

“The allegations are subject to be proven at the trial in High Court,” Ong said.

However, the bench dismissed Santamil’s appeal to sue on behalf of Balasubramaniam’s estate as she did not have the letter of administration.

Deepak’s lead counsel, Wan Azmir Wan Majid, said the Court of Appeal gave his client 14 days to file his defence in the High Court.

Santamil’s lawyer Americk Sidhu was not present today as he is overseas.

In June last year, Santamil filed the suit on behalf of the estate of Balasubramaniam, who died of a heart attack on March 15, 2013, soon after his return from India.

The suit would expose the roles of several people in sending Santamil’s family into exile following controversies surrounding two statutory declarations by Balasubramaniam involving Altantuya and Najib.

This also included why Bala was forced to retract his first sworn statement highlighting Najib’s alleged involvement with Altantuya, and why Balasubramaniam and his family were forced to leave the country in 2008.

High Court judge Datuk Hasnah Mohamed Hashim last December allowed an application by Najib, Rosmah, the prime minister’s brothers Datuk Johari and Datuk Nazim, senior lawyer Tan Sri Cecil Abraham, his son Sunil Abraham, commissioner for oaths Zainal Abidin Muhayat and lawyer M. Arulampalam to strike out the widow’s suit.

Hasnah said Santamil lacked the capacity to file for action on behalf of her husband’s estate and her pleadings were not according to law.

Both the Court of Appeal and the Federal Court upheld the High Court decision on the grounds that Santamil’s notice of appeal was defective.
 
However, Deepak was not a respondent in Santamil’s appeal in the Court of Appeal.

Deepak had said he was not a voluntary party to strike out Santamil’s suit in the High Court

In the suit, the family said the defendants, including Deepak, had caused Balasubramaniam’s second statutory declaration to be drafted without instructions from him and further caused him to sign it “under threat and inducement”.

Balasubramaniam and his family left Malaysia after he signed the second statutory declaration in 2008 to denounce the first one he had made the day before.

The second statement cleared Najib of any involvement in the case.

 

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