Mystery report suggests authorities alerted in 2005 (ST: 29 Jan 2014)

A MYSTERY report mentioned for the first time in court yesterday suggests that City Harvest Church had come under the authorities' radar as early as 2005.

That is several years before founder Kong Hee and five other members of the mega-church allegedly funnelled millions in church funds through bogus deals - the subject of the current trial - to either finance the pop music career of his wife Ho Yeow Sun or to cover this up.

Prosecution witness Kevin Han, who has led the Commercial Affairs Department's (CAD) investigation into these transactions since April 2010, said a first information report related to the criminal charges was filed in 2005.

He had explained earlier that such reports are "the first instance when the police receive information about a possible crime".

When defence lawyer Michael Khoo tried to clarify whether the 2005 report had "anything to do with the charges the accused are facing today", which are related to transactions that took place between 2007 and 2009, Deputy Public Prosecutor Mavis Chionh interrupted. She said that under the Evidence Act, investigating officers could not be asked about their sources of information.

As Ms Chionh offered to show the report to the judge to explain why it could not be disclosed publicly in court, Mr Khoo said: "I'm astounded that the prosecution is offering to show your Honour reports which the defence will not be seeing."

But Ms Chionh insisted that there was "no big sinister secret".

Instead, the report detailed suspicious transactions highlighted by financial institutions, she explained. She also reiterated how the law protects informers by not disclosing during trial their identity or the information they gave.

Senior District Judge See Kee Oon said he would hear from both sides on the matter today.

Earlier yesterday, defence lawyer Edwin Tong suggested that CAD's Mr Han and his team had not been thorough when seizing documents relevant to the trial, which began last May.

They had not, for example, taken auditing firm Baker Tilly's work papers related to its special audit of City Harvest in 2003, after a church member raised allegations about the misuse of church funds. They also had not seized any of the accounting firm's electronic storage devices such as hard discs.

Mr Tong alleged this was done on purpose.

Objecting to this as "gratuitous and baseless", Ms Chionh asked whether he intended to make the "serious allegation" that the CAD investigation was biased to an extent that how it did its work was affected.

Mr Tong said there was "no present intention" to do so.

Ms Chionh repeatedly pointed out that if there was useful evidence that had not been seized, Mr Tong could apply to the court to have it produced. "But if he is not making the application... then I take it that he is unable to show why the item of evidence is necessary or desirable for the purposes of this trial."