Brief opening remarks from Senior Counsel Maniam
Your Honour knows my learned friends Mr Sreeni has spoken about how the
prosecution is trying to join dots to form a picture to present to the
court. I’d like to build on that, just to emphasise that some of the
dots only involve some of the accused. Your Honour would already have a
flavour of that because at times the prosecution has put rather broad
propositions such as the bond transaction co-accused did this or that,
when the particular email only involves, say, two or three of them.
I can give your Honour a couple of examples. For instance, exhibit E-1
[200 000 CDs email], the email exchange that concerns the 200,000 units
in album sales, Pastor Kong is not on that, and neither is John.
The July 2007 board meeting. Pastor Kong didn’t attend that, and neither did Eng Han.
The 9 April 2009 meeting with Mr Sim Guan Seng, which your Honour heard a
lot about over the last couple of days, my client, Serina wasn’t there
and neither was Eng Han.
When your Honour comes to critically review the evidence at the end of
the day, I would ask you Honour to look at each of the individuals as an
individual. Yes, it is a conspiracy charge, but each of them stands
before your Honour to be judged aas an individual. Whatever dots the
prosecution wants to join for each of them must be a real dot that
concerns them. It mustn’t just be some broadbrush proposition that says
that accused did this or that.
Having said that, there are admittedly some dots that connect all of the
accused: their love for the church, their belief in the Crossover
Project as a core mission of the church, their belief that what they
were doing was in the interest of the church and was not against the
law.
At the end of the day, I would invite your Honour to connect those dots and look at the picture that they form.
It’s a long trial. I’ve said enough, and it’s time for my client [Serina Wee] to speak for herself.
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