KUALA LUMPUR (Feb 25): Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor's second trial, which is for charges of money laundering and tax evasion involving RM7.09 million, will begin in November before High Court Justice Mohamed Zaini Mazlan.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Poh Yin Tinn along with Rosmah's defence counsel Datuk Geethan Ram Vincent confirmed this with theedgemarkets.com today.
This follows the case management of the matter before Justice Zaini today.
In December last year, the judge had offered to recuse himself from hearing the case as he is also presiding in Rosmah's solar hybrid case where he has ordered former premier Datuk Seri Najib Razak's wife to enter her defence.
Poh told the court the prosecution is not making an application to transfer the case to another judge.
To this, Geethan, who appeared with Revin Kumar, told Justice Zaini that they would take instructions from Rosmah on whether they would apply for the judge's recusal.
Poh also informed the court that there will be 15 witnesses testifying for the prosecution in the case.
Following this, Justice Zaini fixed trial dates on Nov 15-17, 29 and 30, Dec 1, 2, 13 and 14, along with Jan 10 to 13 and 24 to 27 next year.
The court has fixed Sept 9 for further case management of the matter.
On Oct 4, 2018, Rosmah was slapped with 12 money-laundering charges amounting to RM7.09 million believed to be proceeds from unlawful activities following 235 transactions between Dec 4, 2013 and June 8, 2017 to her Perwira Affin bank account.
Initially, between December 2013 and December 2014, the sum deposited were in six figures of up to RM300,000
The remaining five charges concern Rosmah’s alleged failure to declare the same RM7.09 million to the Inland Revenue Board for five tax assessment years from 2013 to 2017 as required under the Income Tax Act.
On Feb 18, Justice Zaini had ordered Rosmah, 69, to enter her defence on three counts of graft including soliciting RM187.5 million from Jepak Holdings Sdn Bhd managing director Saidi Abang Samsudin between January to April 2016, and receiving RM5 million and RM1.5 million at Seri Perdana and her Jalan Langgak Duta private residence between Dec 20, 2016 and Sept 7, 2017.
The court ordered her defence to begin for nine days starting from June 9.