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[h=2]The defence lawyers representing the six leaders of City Harvest Church have attacked the prosecution's case, saying it has not proven beyond reasonable doubt that they misused church funds.[/h]
File photo of the City Harvest Church in Singapore. (AFP/Roslan Rahman)
SINGAPORE: The defence lawyers representing the six leaders of City Harvest Church have attacked the prosecution's case, saying it has not proven beyond reasonable doubt that they misused church funds.
This comes after 42 days of trial and evidence from 14 prosecution witnesses.
Chief District Judge See Kee Oon has to decide after the submissions, if the defence has a case to answer.
Church founder Kong Hee and five of his deputies are accused of misusing millions of the church's building fund monies to boost the career of Kong's wife, singer Sun Ho.
They are accused of doing so through "sham bond investments" and by round-tripping the funds.
A key argument was with regards to how the charges were framed.
The prosecution's case is that the accused were entrusted with the church funds and had full control over them.
But the defence said this was not true.
It pointed out that there was no resolution passed by the church board, indicating who were the people who were decision makers and could control the church funds.
As such, the defence's point was that the church board decided on the use of church funds as a whole.
Another point made by the defence was that the church's building fund could be invested and in this case, it was invested in Xtron, which was a firm the church supported and knew about.
The money invested in Xtron was then used to fund the Crossover Project, which was used for evangelism and the church members all knew about it.
So there was no concealment and there was no dishonesty about it.
- CNA/de
SINGAPORE: The defence lawyers representing the six leaders of City Harvest Church have attacked the prosecution's case, saying it has not proven beyond reasonable doubt that they misused church funds.
This comes after 42 days of trial and evidence from 14 prosecution witnesses.
Chief District Judge See Kee Oon has to decide after the submissions, if the defence has a case to answer.
Church founder Kong Hee and five of his deputies are accused of misusing millions of the church's building fund monies to boost the career of Kong's wife, singer Sun Ho.
They are accused of doing so through "sham bond investments" and by round-tripping the funds.
A key argument was with regards to how the charges were framed.
The prosecution's case is that the accused were entrusted with the church funds and had full control over them.
But the defence said this was not true.
It pointed out that there was no resolution passed by the church board, indicating who were the people who were decision makers and could control the church funds.
As such, the defence's point was that the church board decided on the use of church funds as a whole.
Another point made by the defence was that the church's building fund could be invested and in this case, it was invested in Xtron, which was a firm the church supported and knew about.
The money invested in Xtron was then used to fund the Crossover Project, which was used for evangelism and the church members all knew about it.
So there was no concealment and there was no dishonesty about it.
- CNA/de
