Mahmud denies having affairs

Splitsville: High-profile divorce between Shahnaz and Mahmud.

KUALA LUMPUR: Sarawak tycoon Datuk Seri Mahmud Abu Bekir Taib says he did not have affairs (hubungan sulit) with women from all over the world.

Mahmud denied it in a Syariah High Court here when replying to his former wife Shahnaz A. Majid’s counsel Akbardin Abdul Kader du­­ring cross-examination yesterday.

Asked by Akbardin whether he had affairs with other women between 1992 and 1999, he replied: “It is not true.”

However, Mahmud added that he did meet an Australian woman who was atten­ding a course for Muslim converts in Singapore at the time.

But he denied that he met a Latvian woman and a Russian woman during that period.

The 51-year-old son of Sarawak Governor Tun Abdul Taib Mahmud was testifying at the hearing of the RM100mil mutaah (conciliatory gift) claim by Shahnaz as divorce settlement.

Akbardin asked whether the Latvian woman was non-existent and if the plaintiff had given false evidence, Mahmud said: “It is all false.”

Mahmud said he was surprised to know Shahnaz was worried when he did not return to Sarawak and stayed at his father’s house here between 1994 and 1997.

“It is true that I seldom came back to our house. I am puzzled, if she was restless, why did she vent her anger.

“She was scolding me as I left the house (in Sarawak),” Mahmud added.

Earlier, he said he knew Shahnaz when they were both 15 years old. He was studying at Victoria Institution and she, at the Methodist Girls’ School here.

Mahmud also said that he was of Sarawakian-Polish-Russian pa­­­­rentage and is the second of four siblings, adding that their son Raden Murya Abdul Taib was about 18 years old when they divorced.

The couple were married on Jan 9, 1992, and divorced on May 11, 2011.

Syarie judge Muhamad Abdul Karim Wahab adjourned the trial to Jan 21.