Opinion Research Centre
KUALA LUMPUR: Mahkamah Tinggi di sini mengeluarkan waran tangkap ke atas bekas ketua pengarah Organisasi Perisikan Luar Malaysia (MEIO), Hasanah Abdul Hamid selepas beliau gagal menghadiri prosiding kes hari ini.
Oktober lalu, Hasanah didakwa melakukan pecah amanah wang berjumlah AS$12.1 juta (RM50.4 juta) milik kerajaan antara 30 April dan 9 Mei 2018.
Ketika jenayah itu didakwa dilakukannya, beliau ialah ketua pengarah Bahagian Penyelidikan Jabatan Perdana Menteri.
Berita lanjut menyusul.
WASHINGTON: The US Commerce Department said on Thursday it was proposing a rule to impose countervailing duties on countries that undervalue their currency relative to the dollar.
“This change puts foreign exporters on notice that the Department of Commerce can countervail currency subsidies that harm US industries,” Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in a statement.
“Foreign nations would no longer be able to use currency policies to the disadvantage of American workers and businesses,” he added.
Calm returned to the streets of Jakarta on Thursday.
KUALA LUMPUR, May 24 ― The Sessions Court here yesterday acquitted and discharged a former police officer who was charged with cheating two government retirees over the sale of a property, three years ago.
Judge Zamri Bakar made the ruling after the prosecution failed to prove a prima facie case against the accused Ab Gani Che Man, 69, at the end of the prosecution case.
“After evaluation the accused is acquitted and discharged without calling for his defence,” he said adding that there were no elements of cheating in the case.
Eight witnesses were called to testify in the trial.
Ab Gani allegedly misled Mohamad Ali Abdullah and Azman Yahya into selling a shophouse at RM680,000.
He was charged with committing the offence at a premises in Desa Pandan on August 18, 2016.
The prosecution was conducted by deputy public prosecutor Noorhani Muhmmed while the accused was represented by counsel N. Kalyana Sundaram. ― Bernama
This is a ‘small subset’ of more than 1 million documents the US is relying on to prosecute the case.
KANGAR, May 24 ― Police on Tuesday detained a man believed to be the main suspect in the torching of Perlis Mufti Datuk Dr Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin’s car in March.
Perlis Police Chief Datuk Noor Mushar Mohamad said the 36-year-old suspect was nabbed at his home here.
Police are now looking for a man, known as “Mie Tomoi”, suspected of also being involved in the incident.
“We have in custody five people so far, all of whom are under remand,” he said when contacted yesterday.
Noor Mushar said early investigations revealed that two of the suspects were also involved in assault of Perlis Islamic Religious Affairs Department Director Dr Hazman Hassan last September.
In the 5.45am incident on March 22, Mohd Asri’s black Honda Accord car was burnt in the engine and left front tyre while the front and back windscreens were smashed. ― Bernama
<p>INDIA today began the mammoth process of counting the roughly 600 million votes cast in the world’s biggest election, with results due later in the day.</p> <p>Exit polls had pointed to a victory for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist government, but the opposition are clinging to hopes of a win.</p>
<p>THE Segamat Municipal Council (MPS) in Johor has tasked its enforcement officers with hauling up Muslims caught eating during fasting hours this Ramadan, <a href="https://www.nst.com.my/news/nation/2019/05/490661/segamat-municipal-council-officers-go-undercover-nab-non-fasting-muslims">the New Straits Times reports</a>.</p> <p>This involves the officers going undercover as cooks and waiters taking and serving orders, MPS president Mohd Masni Wakiman was reported saying.</p>
TOKYO: Carlos Ghosn, who served as chairman and chief executive officer of the world’s biggest auto alliance, adds a new title to his resume today: defendant.
Pre-trial hearings began on Thursday at the Tokyo District Court’s 17th Criminal Court Division, kicking off a new phase in a saga that began in November when Ghosn was arrested just after landing at Haneda Airport on a private jet. Ghosn, wearing a grey suit, didn’t say anything before entering courthouse just before proceedings began at 10am in Tokyo.
His detention on allegations ranging from falsifying financial records to redirecting company money into his own accounts shocked the global auto industry. The alliance Ghosn created between Nissan Motor Co, Renault SA and Mitsubishi Motors Corp was shaken to its core.
In the half year since, the three-way partnership has moved on. New executives were brought in to restore profitability and navigate through an industry that’s facing disruption from electrification, self-driving vehicles and new business models for transporting people and goods.
Ghosn, 65, is charting a different path, his energy focused on fighting for his freedom, proving his innocence and restoring his reputation. While Ghosn may be tempted to bring the same intensity and energy that he brought as ” Le Cost Killer” to Nissan, it’s more likely that the pre-trial hearings and trial will be a drawn-out process with little drama.
“The format of argumentation is primarily on paper, not live,” said Stephen Givens, a professor of law at Sophia University in Tokyo. “In the US, one of the skills that litigators need to have is to be able to think quickly on their feet. There’s very little of that in Japan.”
Ghosn is facing a total of four charges:
Due process
Prosecutors arrested Ghosn multiple times as they handed down the indictments. He was briefly freed on bail, arrested, and then released again, spending a total of 130 days in jail. The former auto executive has consistently denied the charges, describing them as “biased, taken out of context, twisted in a way to paint a personage of greed and a personage of dictatorship.”
“I hope to be given a fair trial where the truth will come to light and I will be fully vindicated,” Ghosn said in a statement issued after his second release on bail on April 25.
Ghosn is planning to attend Thursday’s pre-trial hearing, according to his lawyer, Junichiro Hironaka. Nissan, which has also been charged on one count for allegedly understating Ghosn’s income, declined to comment on the judicial process.
“The company’s focus is on stabilising operations and strengthening its management structure, while addressing the weaknesses in governance that enabled this misconduct,” said Nicholas Maxfield, a Nissan spokesman.
Legal strategy
Thursday’s hearing will focus on the two breach of trust charges, the Sankei newspaper reported, citing Hironaka. A hearing for the two charges for financial misconduct will be held June 24, the newspaper said.
The trial probably won’t get underway until 2020, according to Hironaka. Between now and then, there will be several pre-trial hearings like the one on Thursday, mostly likely three or four for each set of indictments. The purpose of the pre-trial hearings, a new procedure enacted in 2005, is to narrow the scope of charges in order to streamline legal proceedings and speed up the trial.
“The pretrial hearing is so important that it can almost decide the outcome, because you have to decide whose testimony the court is going to hear and which piece of evidence the court will examine,” said Hiroki Sasakura, a professor specialising in criminal procedure at Keio University Law School in Tokyo.
After the pretrial hearing, new evidence cannot be submitted, according to Japan’s code of criminal procedure. Judges can allow new evidence to be presented during the trial at their discretion. The pre-trial hearing process also gives the prosecution and defence, an early look into each other’s potential strategy, as they make their case for what evidence to admit.
That process may take a while. Prosecutors have 120 Blu-Ray discs of audio-visual testimony, even as they continue to investigate and gather evidence, the Nikkei newspaper reported this week.
Three judges
Judges Kenji Shimozu, Kazunori Fukushima and Kenji Matsushita will preside over the proceedings, then issue a verdict. While the trial itself may be even as short as a year, the appeals process could drag out proceedings over several years.
The trial of Japanese internet executive Takafumi Horie on charges of fraudulent accounting lasted five years, including appeals, until he was sentenced to prison in 2011. The former CEO of Livedoor was released in 2013, and has since become an author, social-media maven and rocket industry entrepreneur.
Mark Karpeles, a central figure in the early days of Bitcoin embroiled in the 2014 collapse of Tokyo-based Mt Gox, then the world’s biggest cryptocurrency exchange, was found guilty in March 2019 of tampering with records and given a suspended prison sentence.
Ghosn will be tried alongside Greg Kelly, who ran Nissan’s CEO office and was arrested on the same day as his former boss, Nov 19. Kelly is facing fewer charges, and Ghosn’s lawyers sought to have him tried separately, a petition that the court denied. Kelly, 62, remains free on bail in Japan.
Two other Nissan executives worked closely with Ghosn and Kelly but won’t be facing trial. Toshiaki Onuma and Hari Nada struck plea-bargain agreements with prosecutors and cooperated with them before the arrests, according to Hironaka. They provided authorities with a “substantial amount of statements,” the attorney said.
One question that the defence team says it will ask prosecutors is why Nissan CEO Hiroto Saikawa, Ghosn’s protege-turned-accuser, hasn’t been charged with any crimes. Saikawa signed off on Ghosn’s retirement package, according to an outside corporate-governance panel.
For trials involving multiple charges that result in a guilty verdict, the sentences aren’t added together for each offense. Instead, the maximum prison term is capped at 1 1/2 times the longest possible punishment, according to Sasakura. The maximum fines can be added up. In Ghosn’s case, each of his charges carry a similar maximum sentence of 10 years and a 10 million yen fine.
NEW YORK: British actor Daniel Craig will undergo “minor ankle surgery” after an injury on the set of the latest James Bond film, but his operation and recovery will not affect the film’s expected release next year, producers said on Wednesday.
Craig – who will play the legendary British super spy for the fifth time in the as-yet untitled film – sustained the injury “during filming in Jamaica,” a statement on the official James Bond Twitter account said.
“Production will continue whilst Craig is rehabilitating for two weeks post-surgery. The film remains on track for the same release date in April 2020.”
Rumours about Craig’s injury first started last week, when Variety reported that he “slipped and fell quite awkwardly” while “sprinting” on set. His agents did not respond to AFP requests for comment.
Among the actors who have played Bond on the big screen, Craig is the first to do a lot of his own stunts – a move that has resulted in several injuries.
He lost two teeth in his Bond debut in “Casino Royale,” and tore a muscle in his shoulder on the set of “Quantum of Solace.” In his last Bond outing in “Spectre,” he injured his knee.
The 51-year-old actor, who has not always been the most enthusiastic Bond, finally agreed to take on the role for the fifth – and likely last – time in the 25th instalment of the 007 saga.
Other actors to have played the role include Sean Connery and Roger Moore. But Craig has brought both a new ruthlessness and an emotional vulnerability to the character that audiences have enjoyed.
Oscar winner Rami Malek has been tapped to play the villain in the new film.
