SINGAPORE (June 13): The defence counsels for John Soh Chee Wen, Quah Su Ling, and Goh Hin Calm – the alleged masterminds behind the penny stock crash of 2013 – will be meeting the prosecution in a pre-trial conference on June 29.
The pre-trial conference will see the trial dates set for the cases.
Soh is currently facing 189 charges ranging from witness tampering to fraud, while Quah is facing 178 charges, and Goh is facing six charges. Soh has been held in remand since Nov 2016, while Quah and Goh are out on bail.
This pre-trial conference follows a three-day committal hearing from May 30 to June 1, which saw 13 out of 67 prosecution witnesses cross-examined by the defence lawyers. The trial will likely see more of the 67 witnesses called for cross-examination.
It was revealed during the committal hearing that Quah had been hit with a margin call in the morning of Oct 2, 2013, and given three hours to repay the loan by Goldman Sachs. It was also revealed that Quah and Soh would take the full amount from margin trading.
The defence counsel for Quah also challenged eight charges on the grounds of no or insufficient direct evidence of Quah’s involvement. However, assistant registrar James Lee had disagreed, and committed the case to court.
