Kuala lumpur: The High Court hearing of the Genting Group family's will dispute heard today that one of the contested wills was signed at a private hospital while the late Lim Siew Kim, daughter of Lim Goh Tong, was undergoing treatment for ovarian cancer.
According to BERNAMA News Agency, Low Beng Choo, 68, a lawyer who prepared two wills for the estate of the late Siew Kim, stated that one of the wills was signed on April 11, 2022. He denied any suggestion that the physical and mental condition of the late Siew Kim, at the time she is alleged to have executed the second will, had impaired her capacity to understand or comprehend the nature and extent of the assets she was disposing of.
Low, the sole remaining trustee of Dikim Foundation, the main beneficiary of Siew Kim's allegedly RM1 billion estate, testified under cross-examination by lawyer Datuk V. Sithambaram, counsel for two of the deceased's daughters, Chan T'Shiao Li and Kimberly Chan T'Shiao Miin. The sisters filed the suit in 2023 against four defendants, including Low and their brother Marcus Chan Jau Chwen, challenging their late mother's mental capacity to execute the will and alleging suspicious circumstances surrounding its preparation.
Low, the fourth defendant, had drafted and witnessed Siew Kim's wills dated April 11 and April 28, 2022, and had also acted as a witness to her earlier will dated November 2, 2021. Sithambaram questioned Low about her knowledge of Siew Kim's health condition, particularly her treatment for ovarian cancer and other ailments at Prince Court Medical Centre on April 11, 2022. Low responded that she did not know fully.
Sithambaram contended that due to the deceased's physical and mental condition, she was not in a position to understand the extent of what she was executing with the second will. Low disagreed with this assertion. Counsel further argued that Siew Kim had not been assessed as cognitively fit by any qualified medical practitioner, including a psychiatrist or neurologist, before executing the second will, which Low also disputed.
Low informed the court that a doctor had witnessed the signing of the will, stating that it was her general practice to request a doctor's presence whenever she witnessed the execution of a will within a hospital setting. Siew Kim, the third child of the Genting Group founder, succumbed to cancer in July 2022 at the age of 73, leaving behind three daughters and one son. The hearing before Judge Mahazan Mat Taib resumes tomorrow.