KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 29 — Umno president Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi's lawyers should not get a second bite of the cherry in defending him against 47 criminal charges, by asking him questions that should have been asked at an earlier stage of the trial, the prosecution indicated today.
Lead prosecutor Datuk Raja Rozela Raja Toran today, however, repeatedly raise objections to questions that were posed by Ahmad Zahid's lawyer Datuk Ahmad Zaidi Zainal, as the questions were either on matters that were not even raised during the cross-examination stage or touched on matters that should have been raised in the examination-in-chief stage instead of now.
"I did challenge the accused on this, but not to the extent of now having the witness explain for the second time. If at all, it should have been done during the examination-in-chief," she said. Asked by High Court judge Datuk Collin Lawrence Sequerah if this matter had been asked during cross-examination, Zaidi said it was asked during cross-examination on why the RM360,000 was given to TS Consultancy.
Ahmad Zahid's lead defence lawyer Datuk Hisyam Teh Poh Teik then said the defence team should be entitled to expand on the matter and there ought to be no limit since the point was raised by the prosecution during cross-examination, and argued that the question should be admissible to explain the point.
Zaidi then said he was not going deeper into the matter and only wanted to ask whether the funds was used by TS Consultancy to register voters in Bagan Datuk or over the whole country.