CITY HARVEST CHURCH LEADERS'
TRIAL
THE ACCUSED
KONG HEE
Founder and senior pastor of City Harvest
Church
Lawyer: Mr Edwin Tong
TAN YE PENG
Founding member and deputy senior pastor of City Harvest
Church
Lawyer: Senior Counsel N Sreenivasan and Senior Counsel Chelva
Rajah
CHEW ENG HAN
Former City Harvest Church board member and the church's
former investment manager
Lawyer: Senior Counsel Michael Khoo
JOHN LAM
LENG HUNG
City Harvest Church
board member
Lawyers: Senior Counsel Kenneth Tan and Mr Nicholas
Narayanan
SERINA WEE GEK YIN
Former City Harvest Church finance manager, who later
set up a company that managed the church's accounts. She is also a
board member
Lawyer: Senior Counsel Andre Maniam
SHARON TAN
SHAO YUEN
City Harvest Church finance manager
Lawyer: Senior Counsel Kannan Ramesh and Mr Jeffrey Ong
The man who kept asking
questions
Key witness in trial takes stand today as
trial of megachurch leaders continues
Report by
ELIZABETH LAW
He is the man who had allegedly raised doubts about the
way money was being moved around at the City Harvest Church
(CHC).
Baker Tilly auditor Sim Guan Seng was the church's external
auditor and will be the key witness as the City Harvest trial
continues today.
It is now its third tranche and the next four weeks
are expected to be explosive, with Mr Sim at the centre of the
courtroom face-offs.
Church founder Kong Hee and his five deputies are
accused of misusing more than $50 million in church funds to fund
the pop career of Ho Yeow Sun, who is Kong's wife. (See report
above.)
The prosecutor's case is that they had funnelled
the money into a number of companies through a series of sham
bonds.
These companies include Xtron Productions, Ms Ho's
former management company; PT The First Glassware (Firna), which is
owned by CHC member and Indonesian businessman Wahju Hanafi; and
Amac Capital Partners, an investment management firm owned by one
of the accused, Chew Eng Han.
This is one of the largest trials in recent history
- involving six accused, at least six defence lawyers (five of whom
are senior counsels, or elite lawyers) and six deputy public
prosecutors.
QUESTIONED
TRANSACTIONS
This part of the trial will be spread out over seven months,
lasting as short as two days and as long as 20 days at a
stretch.
Mr Sim had questioned the transactions that are now
under contention.
The "red flags" he raised included whether Xtron
Productions was related to CHC.
In April 2009, the church's finance manager Sharon
Tan wrote an e-mail to Tan Ye Peng, a senior pastor, and Chew, a
former CHC board member, saying; "Mr Sim 'mellowed down' after you
left but made some remarks which I think we should think about.
1) He is not convinced about the reasons we gave him about
Xtron.
2) He still feels it (Xtron and the church) is obviously
related.
3) He passed a remark saying that no matter how we put the
story, it still does not eliminate the obvious. So he chose to stop
asking. He knows we will give some more stories which will trigger
more questions from him.
4) He still does not agree with the valuation done. But for this
time, he will just pass it (the church's accounts) first.
5) He hopes to see this Xtron issue being solved in this
financial year."
The missive was read out in court when the church's
former assistant accountant Lai Baoting appeared to testify.
With each passing day, it became clear the CHC top
brass was reluctant to work with Mr Sim.
During the last tranche, it was revealed that the
six accused had dropped Mr Sim, preferring to go to then-managing
partner Foong Daw Ching, a man they fondly referred to as "Bro
Foong".
An e-mail sent in June 2009 from the church's
former finance manager Serina Wee to Tan said it would be difficult
to talk to Mr Sim about Xtron Productions' accounts because they
were concerned about showing overly close links between the company
and CHC.
She went on to ask Mr Foong for an "off the record"
meeting so the City Harvest group would know what to tell Mr Sim at
a separate meeting to ensure he would not ask too many
questions.
Today, the court will looking to the man who asked
too many questions to provide the answers.
News, The New Paper, Monday, January 13 2014, Pg 14-15
