On his final day as prosecution witness, Choong Kar Weng gave the big picture of the Crossover Project.
CN PHOTO: Daniel Poh.
Just before court adjourned for the day, a new aspect of the Crossover Project surfaced in response to a last minute question posed by senior district judge See Kee Oon. He sought to clarify what prosecution witness Choong Kar Weng meant when he told the DPP Ong during re-examination that the church was “being discreet yet celebrating the success of the Crossover Project.”
Choong explained that in the initial years of the Crossover Project, evangelism was achieved through pop concerts across Asia Pacific which ended with an altar call, and concert-goers had the opportunity to receive Christ. The success of these concerts was widely celebrated in reports to the church members.
Choong then revealed that the next phase of the Crossover was to raise Sun’s profile in US with the ultimate objective of spreading the Gospel in China. He explained that that it was necessary for CHC to be discreet in its support of Ho’s music career as China was significantly less receptive of Christianity.
This afternoon’s proceedings saw DPP Ong attempting to clarify other issues brought up by the defense counsel at cross-examination. When he questioned Choong about the soundness of the sales revenue projections of Sun Ho’s music album, Choong told the Court that he saw no reason to doubt the figures given by Kong Hee and Serina Wee.
The prosecution also sought to challenge senior counsel Kannan Ramesh’s establishment that no church funds were used in covering Xtron’s losses, by questioning the genuineness of AMAC’s rate of return from its investments. Choong replied that as long as the board members of CHC agreed to the rate, it was taken as the basis of calculating the rate of return.
The afternoon saw a flurry of heated exchanges between the prosecution and defense at many points during the reexamination, with defense questioning the relevance of the prosecution’s queries, to which the prosecution replied that context was necessary for what Choong had testified to at cross-examination.
Choong was discharged as prosecution witness after today’s session.
Court resumes at 9:15 tomorrow morning with the fifth prosecution witness, CHC trustee Jeffrey Cheong taking the stand.
中文报道 – CHC庭讯：跨界计划必须要“谨慎低调”才能达成最终目标
