A KEY witness today told the Kuala Lumpur High Court that he wanted to invest in companies linked to tycoon Datuk Vinod Sekhar to allegedly develop a technology in recycling rubber waste back in 2002.
During re-examination by his own counsel Colin Pereira, the sole witness, Graham David Bell said the technolgy was not currently available and he would have loved for it to work.
Earlier Bell also acknowledged that the names of some of plaintiffs in the documents produced in the suit were different.
“I sometimes put my name as A. Graham and not Graham David Bell," he said.
The proceedings since Monday saw the plaintiffs' attempt to amend a ‘claim’ on an investment purportedly made some 20 years ago which was rejected by the High Court along with it ordering the 12 parties to pay RM5,000 in costs each (RM 60,000) to the billionaire.
The suit, initiated by a group of 10 foreign investors and 2 former employees, who alleged that the chairman of the Malaysian conglomerate Petra Group, did not comply to what was seemingly agreed to between the years 2004 and 2007, just prior to the global financial crisis, to which a legal analyst says the use of the word fraud in the case was merely a means to go against time barring based on the statute of limitations.
The plaintiffs further alleged that the tycoon and philanthropist conspired to perpetuate the same misconduct and are seeking the return of their funds, along with interest, damages, and other reliefs.
But, strangely, out of the 12 plaintiffs, only one party - Bell - showed up in court since Monday.
To another question by Pereira why Bell did not file a suit earlier, he (Bell) said he did not see any reason to at that time.
"Everything was fine then and we were told that our shares would be worth alot," he said.
Earlier, during cross-examination by defence counsel Datuk Seri Rajan Navaratnam whether the defendant had portrayed that he was ‘well connected to important people’, the plaintiff said he disagreed.
Rajan: So, you agree there was no evidence to suggest that the defendant was well connected?
Bell: No, I disagree.
Rajan: Do you think the claims in the suit are a fallacy?
Bell: I disagree.
Rajan: Can we assume that you and the others purposely waited until Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim became the Prime Minister?
Bell: No, I had no knowledge of this.
Rajan: Did you know Anwar Ibrahim became the Prime Minister?
Bell: I did not know because I don’t live in Malaysia.
Rajan also earlier grilled Bell on whether he had written or published any articles related to Sekhar.
The plaintiff disagreed that he wrote or published any such articles related to the defendant but said that he relied on certain articles made through searches on the internet before filing the suit.
When questioned on the source of the articles and whether he had personal knowledge of the said articles, Bell said: “I read it on the internet’ despite earlier disagreeing to a question on whether the articles were merely printouts from the internet.
The counsel also on numerous occasions asked the plaintiff to stick to answering the questions and refrain from making side comments to his answers which were deemed as misleading the court.
When asked if he had taken steps to verify the truthfulness of the articles himself, the plaintiff disagreed.
Pereira only had seven questions completed in 20 minutes, while Rajan spent three days and grilled Bell with over 500 questions
The trial is set to resume on January 16, 2026. - October 8, 2025
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