Aminah Abdullah, the mother of former Cabinet minister Jamaluddin Jarjis, will oppose her daughter-in law Kalsom Ismail’s application to amend her statement of claim to obtain her share of RM1 billion in jointly acquired matrimonial assets, a lawyer said.
Farhan Haziq, a member of Aminah’s legal team, said this is the second time that Kalsom is making such an application.
“Aminah will file an affidavit in reply to respond to Kalsom’s application (to amend the statement),” he told FMT after case management before shariah high court deputy registrar Hadi Hamat.
Lawyer Sulaiman Abdullah, for Kalsom, said she had filed the application last month to exclude several assets, one of which is a property in Boston in the US.
“The court has fixed May 17 for my client to obtain leave to do the amendment,” he said.
Kalsom, a former dentist, had in early 2018 filed the suit to get 50% of Jamaluddin’s moveable and immovable properties acquired here and overseas valued at RM2.1 billion from the deceased’s estate.
However, Aminah, 88, objected as she said most of the assets were accumulated before her son married Kalsom.
She also claimed Jamaluddin had acquired the properties without any contribution from Kalsom.
In 2017, Jamaluddin’s children – Nur Anis and Ikhwan Hafiz – were appointed administrators of his estate to distribute the properties in accordance with Islamic law.
Under shariah law, the mother gets one-sixth of the estate’s assets, the wife gets one-eighth and the remainder is shared among the children.
Should Kalsom succeed in her suit, she will be entitled to 50% and another one-eighth under hukum faraid.
Mediation over assets left by Jamaluddin, who once also served as the Malaysian ambassador to the US, failed in 2019.
Jamaluddin was killed on April 4, 2015, when the helicopter he was travelling in from Pekan, Pahang, to Kuala Lumpur crashed at Kampung Sungai Pening in Semenyih, Selangor.
Also killed in the crash were pilot Captain Clifford William Fournier, former prime minister Najib Razak’s private secretary Azlin Alias, businessman Tan Huat Seang, Jamaluddin’s personal aide Razakan Seran, and a woman identified as Aidana Baizieva.
Jamaluddin was an Umno Supreme Council member and the Rompin MP from 1990 until his death. – FMT