Testifying in his criminal trial, he said he never pocketed the RM6 million and that the money was slated for charity work as testified by two key witnesses – former Datasonic Group Bhd directors Chew Ben Ben and Abu Hanifah Noordin.
“Datuk Hanifah and Chew came to court and said the payment was not related to Datasonic’s appointment to be the government’s passport chip supplier. They made no mention of ‘corruption’ in their testimony,” he said.
“Chew even went on to say the two charges are ‘defamatory’.”
Zahid is standing trial on 47 charges of money laundering and criminal breach of trust (CBT) involving millions from Yayasan Akalbudi and accepting bribes for various projects during his tenure as the home minister.
Twelve of the charges are for CBT, eight for corruption and the remaining 27 for money laundering.
For the charges related to the supply of passport chips, it is alleged that he received RM6 million from Chew on April 26, 2017.
Zahid also told the court that as home minister, he had no powers to award the passport chip supply contract to Datasonic through direct negotiations.
He said only the finance ministry could award a contract through direct negotiations.
“I was never the finance minister,” he said, adding that the criteria for awarding contracts through direct negotiations was “very strict”.
He explained that in 2016, the immigration department needed to restock passports due to a shortage.
“I wrote to my secretary-general in the home ministry and asked him to make an application to the Treasury, to seek their permission to purchase more passports,” he said.
He said that as a minister overseeing the immigration department, he was duty-bound to resolve the matter and protect the image of the ministry from public criticism.
Lawyer Ahmad Zaidi Zainal then asked what the RM6 million donation would be used for.
To that, Zahid said he planned to build a religious school in his Bagan Datuk constituency.
“However, Yayasan Akalbudi’s account was frozen (by the authorities) and the construction work had to stop because the contractors couldn’t get their payment,” he said.
The hearing before judge Collin Lawrence Sequerah continues.