The former head of troubled steel giant Perwaja was charged yesterday with fraud after an eight-year investigation by anti-corruption authorities into Malaysia's biggest financial scandal.
Prosecutors charged Eric Chia with criminal breach of trust for allegedly embezzling 76.4 million ringgit (US$20.1 million) from the Perwaja Rolling Mill and Development steel company in 1994, when he was then managing director.
Chia, 71, who was detained on Monday, pleaded not guilty to the charge and vowed to reporters: "I will fight until the end. I leave it to God to judge."
Lawyers said Chia faces up to 20 years in jail if convicted.
Judge Akhtar Tahir set the trial for August and granted Chia bail of 2 million ringgit. His passport was also surrendered to the court.
The charge followed an investigation that began in 1996 into millions of dollars in losses suffered by the steel giant.
Perwaja, which processes iron ore, was the cornerstone of Malaysia's industrialization drive begun by former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad in the early 1980s.
But in 1996, parliament was told that Perwaja was insolvent with losses totalling 2.9 billion ringgit, and the government ordered a probe into the company's finances that would eventually involve 50 witnesses.
Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who took over from Mahathir last October and has made an anti-corruption drive the center-piece of his premiership, said: "If investigations show that corruption had taken place, the law will have to take its course."
Asked if he was caught off-guard by the arrest, Chia said, "It was a surprise when they stopped me on the road when I was buying food. They should have arrested me when I was at home," he said.
Chia said that he was prepared to face the court to clear his name.
"I have been waiting for this all this while. I am prepared to go through it," he said.
Chia said he had been mandated by Mahathir to revitalize the company when it ran into financial problems in 1998.
"I was asked to do a national service. Perwaja was at that time already bankrupt," he said.
Lim Kit Siang, chairman of the opposition Democratic Action Party, said that the Perwaja issue was undoubtedly the biggest financial scandal in Malaysia and called for a royal commission to investigate the firm's losses.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but