Xtron director Choong Kar Weng was willing to bear a $3 million liability; defence counsel objects to prosecution’s line of questioning.
CN PHOTO: Daniel Poh
Xtron director Choong Kar Weng and his co-director Koh Siow Ngea had each taken a S$3 million loan to increase Xtron’s share capital so that a bank loan could be finalized.
This was revealed in court this morning, the second day in the second tranche of the trial involving the CHC leaders.
Choong told the court that he was willing to be personally liable for the $3 million, that was how he saw Xtron’s role, as a vehicle for the Crossover Project and for Riverwalk.
When asked why he would do that, and what benefit came out of it, Choong replied that it was all for what God is doing.
The prosecution attempted to persuade Choong into agreeing that the amount for Riverwalk in the minutes of an Extraordinary General Meeting attended by executive members of the church did not tally with the amount in the actual loan documents was unsuccessful when defence counsel for Serina Wee, Andre Maniam questioned if the loan had already been taken at that point. Senior counsel for Chew Eng Han, Michael Khoo further pointed out that the EGM happened in August 2008 while the loan for Riverwalk was only in force in November that year.
CHC gave a loan to Xtron in 2008 in exchange for convertible bonds.
Senior counsel for Tan Ye Peng, N. Sreenivasan also objected to Deputy Public Prosecutor Christopher Ong’s questioning of its witness, Xtron director Choong Kar Weng about emails he was not a part of.
Sreenivasan’s objection came after Ong showed an email circulated among Serina Wee, Tan Ye Peng, Kong Hee and Chew Eng Han discussing how to present the loan from City Harvest Church to Xtron to its executive members.
According to one exchange in the email, Chew suggested to Wee and Tan to explain to the executive members that the loan was safe because “Xtron is under CHC control”. Ong asked Choong if this was consistent with his understanding of the relationship between CHC and Xtron, to which Choong replied that he did not regard that statement to be true.
Sreenivasan said that this was one of the many instances, since Choong took the stand yesterday morning, where DPP expected Choong to speculate on issues raised in emails he was not privy to, which was unfair to the latter. The senior counsel pointed out the prosecution’s questioning so far had not gone anywhere near the charges. Judge See Kee Oon agreed.
Ong explained that these emails revealed that the people Choong trusted were discussing the relationship between Xtron and CHC in a manner that was contradictory to his understanding. It was thus necessary to bring up these documents.
中文报道 – 钟嘉荣为《思创》承担个人责任
