Federal Court dismisses Zahid's bid to consolidate CBT charges from 12 to three

PUTRAJAYA (Bernama): The Federal Court has dismissed a bid by former deputy prime minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi to consolidate his 12 criminal breach of trust (CBT) charges over funds belonging to Yayasan Akalbudi into three charges.

This follows the unanimous decision of a three-man Court of Appeal bench on June 23,2020 to to dismiss Ahmad Zahid's appeal against the decision made by Kuala Lumpur High Court Judge Collin Lawrence Sequerah on Nov 8, 2019.

Justice Yaacob Md Sam, who led the bench, said that the panel found that there was no appealable error from the High Court in dismissing Ahmad Zahid's application.

The other judges on the bench were P. Ravinthran and Ahmad Nasfy Yasin.

The Bagan Datuk MP was appealing against the High Court ruling dismissing his application to consolidate his 12 CBT charges over funds belonging to Yayasan Akalbudi to become three.

Judge Sequerah made the decision after finding that the present 12 charges against Ahmad Zahid are clear and the accused could understand them for preparing his defence, thus not raising any issue of prejudice.

Moreover, he ruled that Section 153(2) of the Criminal Procedure Code does not make it mandatory for the prosecution to combine the charges.

On Oct 19 and Dec 14, 2018, as well as Feb 20, 2020, Ahmad Zahid had pleaded not guilty to a total of 47 charges, 12 of which are for CBT, eight for bribery and 27 for money laundering involving tens of millions of ringgit belonging to Yayasan Akalbudi.

The trial before Judge Sequerah was set to continue on July 3, 2020. - Bernama