VK Lingam, the lawyer at the centre of the grainy video clip on judicial fixing, took the stand at 12.30pm today as the 13th witness at the Royal Commission.Related Article:" I DON'T KNOW WHO I WAS SPEAKING TO. "
(Listen to this:
Lingam Does NOT Know Who He was Speaking To !!! )
"But certainly I wasn’t speaking to Ahmad Fairuz because I never had his mobile number and he didn’t have mine either."
" No matter what people said, my answer is still the same -
IT LOOKS LIKE ME, IT SOUNDS LIKE ME..."
-Dato VK Lingam
Excerpts: Read here for more article by Brendan Navin Siva
Loh Gwo Burne, the son of Loh Mui Fah, was called to give evidence. Loh Mui Fah is the businessman who was constantly harassed and intimidated by the gangster-style of ACA officers.
To questions by Dato’ Nordin:
Loh Gwo Burne confirmed that Loh Mui Fah is his father.To questions by his counsel, Alex de Silva:He confirmed that he knew Dato’ V.K. Lingam. He said he cannot recall the exact date but he remembers visiting Dato’ Lingam’s house in late December and the purpose of the visit was for dinner and to discuss legal matters.
He confirmed that he did take a camera to Dato’ Lingam’s house. He said he brought the camera along because it was a new camera and he brought it around everywhere to use it.
It was a Sony 707. He said Dato’ Lingam knew he had a camera and during the course of the night he did take photographs at the house.
When shown the photo (below) of Dato’ Lingam, Manjit Singh and Loh Mui Fah, Gwo Burne confirmed it was taken by him after dinner at about 10 pm.
Dato’ Lingam, Manjit Singh and Loh Mui Fah
Gwo Burne also confirmed that his camera did have a video recording function.
He confirmed he did record Dato’ Lingam speaking on the phone and he did record Dato’ Lingam speaking to his father after the phone call.
The video clip was played for Gwo Burne. Gwo Burne confirmed the contents were the same as what he recorded.
When asked by Dato’ Nordin why he recorded the video clip, he said,“I was trying to take a picture of the vase and halfway through I discovered it was on video recording mode. I let the recording continue because I was bored and frankly I was fed up with Dato’ Lingam always on the phone”.He said that Dato’ Lingam was supposed to be discussing legal matters with his father and him but Dato’ Lingam was always constantly on the phone and dealing with other matters.
Gwo Burne confirmed it was Dato’ Lingam in the video clip speaking on the phone.
He said he did not believe that Dato’ Lingam was aware he was recording the video. He said he had heard what Dato’ Lingam say when he was on the phone. He confirmed that it was his father sitting on the sofa.
He said he did not tell his father he was recording the video. He said that he did hear the conversation between his father and Dato’ Lingam.
When asked why the photograph after dinner shows the man’s shirt was tucked in but it was not so in the video clip, Gwo Burne said that the video clip was taken BEFORE dinner and DURING dinner, Dato’ Lingam spilled some curry on his shirt and went to change. Presumably he tucked in his shirt after that.
Gwo Burne testified that he went home and on the same night he downloaded the contents of the memory card of the camera into his computer.
A month later, he burned it into a CD. When asked the whereabouts of the CD, he said it has been a long time and he did not know where the CD was.
He said that before he left for China, he downloaded the entire contents of his computer into various mediums, e.g. dvd, hard drive and into his laptop.
He said in 2002 he burnt an extra CD for Manjit Singh. He said his original computer is not around anymore and the downloaded contents are in various places in China.
When asked how the video clip came to be released to the public, Gwo Burne said,“Initially, I thought it was Manjit but then I found out he died, so I have
no idea”.
Gwo Burne said that he arrived at the house at around 6 pm and shortly after his arrival he asked Dato’ Lingam if he could take some photos and recordings and Dato’ Lingam said ok. He said Dato’ Lingam thereafter went out to buy some wine and came back after 30 minutes.Then R Thayalan, counsel for Dato’ Lingam, posed questions.
He said Dato’ Lingam’s sister was there for about 30 – 45 minutes and that dinner was served at about 8.30pm.
He said the video clip was taken after Dato’ Lingam’s sister had left but before dinner.
He said that he did not follow exactly the contents of the phone conversation and that he did not tell his father about the video recording.
He said he gave the video recording to Manjit Singh around 2002 and that he did so because they both had complaints about Dato’ Lingam. Manjit’s complaint was that he had not been paid.
Gwo Burne testified that Manjit said Dato’ Lingam was always “politics, politics, politics”. Gwo Burne asked Manjit to check out the video clip and he burnt a CD for him. He did not tell his father he gave the CD to Manjit.
Gwo Burne confirmed that in transferring the data from his camera to his computer, he did not interfere, tamper or edit the video clip.
He confirmed that what had been played in the courtroom was the recording he had taken.
When asked what was his impression that evening and whether Dato’ Lingam was drunk or intoxicated, Gwo Burne said:“It was just early in the evening. We had not even had dinner yet. Throughout the night they didn’t drink that much anyway. I don’t think even by the end of the night he was drunk”.When asked whether it was his impression that Dato’ Lingam was play acting or staging, Gwo Burne said“No. Sometimes I could hear a male voice on the other side of the line”.
Gwo Burne confirmed that the photos and video were on the same memory card.Questions were then posed by counsel for Tun Ahmad Fairuz.
He said he had deleted the photos and videos stored in the memory card. Counsel asked whether Gwo Burne agreed that the recordings taken of the house were not part of the video clip and that part of the video recording had been deleted from the video clip.
When Gwo Burne did not understand, Tan Sri Haidar explained the question and Gwo Burne said that the video recording of the house was BEFORE the video clip shown in the courtroom. To a question by Datuk Shankar, Gwo Burne agreed that the memory card has other material apart from what has been seen here.
When asked by Thayalan whether he agreed that without the original memory card, the Commission could not compare the video clip with other materials in the memory card, Gwo Burne said that the materials are still available and whether or not he recorded the house is not relevant to the video clip recording.
He did not agree that without the original memory card, it was not possible to compare. He said that the video clip was a separate file from other recordings in the memory card and it was not a continuous recording.
When asked “Without the memory card, can we conclusively say that the video clip is only recordings in that file?”, Gwo Burne said yes.
Datuk Shankar said “What you are saying is that this segment is complete in itself from start to finish and this is one complete segment?” Gwo Burne agreed.
When asked whether it is possible to have edited the video clip, Gwo Burne said it is not entirely impossible.
Upon clarification from Tan Sri Haidar, Gwo Burne agreed that the video clip he saw today was the same as what he recorded.
Gwo Burne said that the camera was not hidden and was visible to Dato’ Lingam. He said it was either hanging from his neck by a strap or on his lap and was visible at all times.
That brought to an end the evidence of Gwo Burne.Gwo Burne refused to agree that the video clip could not be verified without the original memory card. He said that when he downloaded a file to another medium, it is still identical.
Gwo Burne said the memory card could hold 60 to 90 minutes of recording. He said he bought the camera 2 weeks before the visit.
To a question by Thayalan as to how Gwo Burne could tell it was a male voice on the other side of the line, Gwo Burne said “I think through experience I can tell”.
Gwo Burne agreed that he did not know as a fact who Dato’ Lingam was talking to.
When questioned by counsel for Tun Ahmad Fairuz as to how far away Dato’ Lingam was from Gwo Burne, he said he was moving around, sometimes he was near him and sometimes he was far away.
When asked whether his father was in a better position than he was to hear, Gwo Burne said he might have better hearing than his father.
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