Request to delay City Harvest trial denied
Apr 08, 2013
Six City Harvest Church (CHC) leaders accused of embezzling more than $50 million from their parish had a request to push back the start of their trial denied on Friday.
The highly anticipated hearing will go ahead as planned on May 15 and be presided over by Senior District Judge See Kee Onn.
At Friday's pre-trial conference, District Judge Victor Yeo turned down the defence lawyers' request, having considered that the prosecution registered a strong objection to another delay.
Both sides declined to comment on why the defence had applied for the postponement.
The start date of the trial was already pushed back at a pre-trial conference last month, when both sides agreed to switch it from May 6 to May 15.
This was because the church's former investment manager Chew Eng Han had only then secured representation by Senior Counsel (SC) Michael Khoo, after his application to engage a Queen's Counsel - an elite British lawyer - was rejected earlier in March, and Mr Khoo has another case to handle in May.
The Straits Times understands the prosecution passed documents to defence lawyers on Dec 15 last year to facilitate preparation of an agreed statement of facts for the trial so it can be focused on the legal dispute.
The five other CHC leaders and co-defendants secured representation by other SCs last year, apart from senior pastor Kong Hee, who engaged MP Edwin Tong.
The six are charged with conspiring to cheat the church by funnelling $24 million into sham investments to further the career of Kong's pop-singer wife. They then allegedly misappropriated another $26.6 million to cover up the misuse of the first sum.
A popular clothing shop requires all their sales staff to wear clothes that is from its shop. This is a way of modeling the product and also a practice of "guarding their brand". The idea behind it is that shoppers will be more likely to purchase clothes because they will want to look like the people they see wearing them.
In a consumer-oriented culture, it is easy to be seduced into thinking that we can "buy" acceptance by wearing the things others wear.
Sometimes we even convince ourselves that we can win followers for God by making ourselves attractive to the World. But the Bible is clear about what is really important to God. Jesus is our "brand", not conform to the World. We attract others to Christ when we put on His attributes, which include tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering and abvove all LOVE.
In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God. And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. Romans 8:26-29.
Instead of polishing and protecting our own image, we need to be guarding and reflecting the image of God, which is made perfect through Christ.
Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Colossians 3:12-14
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