City Harvest trial: Witness said she was not told about background of transactions

The prosecution tried to show on Monday that a few of the accused church leaders in the City Harvest trial had plotted the movement of millions of dollars, while leaving others out of the loop on their plan.

An email from Serina Wee to Sharon Tan - both of whom are accused persons - saw the former saying that she did not want her company, Advante, to be reflected in "any of the transactions", so that "auditors wouldn't blame us".

Another email from Wee to Wahju Hanafi, who is not one of the accused, saw Wee telling Mr Hanafi to complete certain transactions in the "soonest possible time frame", so that the bank would not "raise any questions".

Mr Hanafi is the director of several companies, including Xtron and Ultimate Assets, which were involved in transactions with the church.

Mr Hanafi had said in an email reply to Wee, Chew Eng Han and second witness Angie Koh: "All these costs are to be borne by Xtron or whatever company. We are just instruments to make things happen."

When Ms Koh was asked by Deputy Public Prosecutor Mavis Chionh if she knew what Mr Hanafi was referring to in his email response, she said she did not.

Ms Koh was then involved in handling the church's accounts, but said repeatedly in her court testimony that Wee had not explained to her the background of the various transactions the church had with companies such as Xtron, AMAC or Ultimate Assets, nor the relationship the church had with these companies.

Monday marks the third day of the trial, in which six church leaders are alleged to have funnelled $24 million into sham bond investments in companies such as Xtron, to further the career of senior pastor Kong Hee's pop singer wife. They are then said to have devised a series of transactions amounting to $26.6 million to clear the engineered bond investments off the church's accounts.