Originally posted by ShutterBug:
I knew it would probably turn out to be a Wayang - "In
fact, a criminal trial may not even take place".
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Former NKF CEO's admission to impact criminal trial
By May Wong, Channel NewsAsia | Posted: 11 January 2007 2139
hrs
Former NKF CEO's admission to impact criminal trial
SINGAPORE: Lawyers observing the NKF civil trial say the former
CEO's concession will have an impact on the criminal case, but the
question on how much of an influence remains to be seen.
[b]In fact, a criminal trial may not even
take place.
Many are wondering if the NKF civil trial will see another twist
when court proceedings resume on Friday, after a break on Thursday,
as lawyers sort out their documents.
Now that the former CEO TT Durai has thrown in the towel, will the
three other defendants follow suit?
"I supposed they've taken a day to think back on whether or not his
concession would affect their case adversely, whether it's worth
going on their own defences but that's the first thing we'll find
out when we come back tomorrow," said Shashi Nathan, Lawyer, Harry
Elias Partnership.
Another thing to look out for is whether a criminal trial will
indeed take place and for how long.
Lawyers say the civil and criminal suits are very different.
For a civil case, the parties have to show enough evidence to put
forward their case. But for a criminal case, it's about proving
beyond any reasonable doubt that a person is guilty. The penalties
too are different.
"Throwing in the towel on this whole matter really means paying
sums of monies in the form of damages. How much of this is yet to
be seen, but throwing in the towel in a criminal matter really
means losing his liberty, one going to jail. So the considerations
of how one decides to progress with the charges against him in the
criminal matter is completely different," said Krishnan Nadarajan,
Lawyer, Tan, Lim and Wong.
A criminal trial after the civil one may also stretch over a long
period of time.
"Unlike a civil trial, there's no affidavit evidence. Evidence will
have to be elicited orally from all the witnesses. There's no
discovery in a criminal trial. So either the prosecution or the
defence, if they want to introduce a document, they would have to
introduce it, as the evidence was solicited. So it would take
somewhat longer to go through and plough through all the documents
in a criminal trial," said Shashi Nathan.
Durai may likely have to fork out about $4m of donations which NKF
might have lost because of this, over $5m which NKF paid out for
services it never received and over $550,000 for Durai's lawyers
after his concession.
Lawyers say there may be more when an assessment of damages is done
at a later stage. - CNA /dt
[/b]
So all he needs to do is give back the money that was not his in
the first place and that's it? 
