Judge Mohamed Zaini Mazlan set the date after hearing submissions for over two days from lawyer Tan Hock Chuan and deputy public prosecutor Julia Ibrahim at the close of the defence’s case.
He also instructed the defence and prosecution to put in their additional submissions before Oct 7 on the admissibility of documents related to the expenditure for the Sungai Besar and Kuala Kangsar by-elections in 2016.
This was after Julia argued that the court should not admit the documents as evidence before the court.
“I will, of course, try to deliver my decision on Nov 17. If I am constrained, I will inform parties in advance,” the judge said.
The prosecution, through their opening statement, contended that the RM2 million given to Tengku Adnan by businessman Chai Kin Kong was meant for by-election purposes, adding that the former had initially asked the businessman for a sum of between RM5 million and RM6 million.
In his defence, Tengku Adnan, better known as Ku Nan, said he did not personally benefit from the RM2 million from Chai, as the money was a “political donation”.
He added he was a successful businessman before he joined Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s Cabinet in 2001 as a deputy minister.
Tengku Adnan was accused of receiving RM2 million from Chai, who was Aset Kayamas’ director, despite knowing that the businessman’s companies had dealings with the federal territories ministry which was under him at the time.
A total of 23 witnesses, including Chai, testified during the prosecution stage while the defence called four witnesses to support their case.
Earlier Julia told the court that the alleged RM2 million receipt for the political donation was dubious because the carbon copies went missing.
She added the defence also did not call witnesses to testify whether Ku Nan issued the RM2 million receipt to Chai and why the carbon copies were nowhere to be found.
Meanwhile, Tan said the receipt was not a forged document and Chai had been keeping the receipt with him all the time.
The lawyer added there had been no suggestion from the prosecution to say that Chai was a dishonest witness.