KUALA LUMPUR: "My house is my castle. I am the king in my house. I can choose to talk rubbish even if I am drunk," lawyer Datuk V.K. Lingam said yesterday.

He was replying to a question by Ranjit Singh who appeared for the Bar Council at the hearing by the Royal Commission of Inquiry on a controversial video clip.

Ranjit had asked Lingam why he discussed the appointment of judges when he was drunk.

Lingam was caught on the 14-minute video clip allegedly brokering judicial appointments on the telephone with Tun Ahmad Fairuz Sheikh Abdul Halim, then chief judge of Malaya on Dec 20, 2001.

Ranjit: Why talk of judicial appointments in the presence of Loh Mui Fah and his son Gwo Burne?

Lingam: I can even pretend to talk to President Bush if I like.

Ranjit: Why specifically say that?

Lingam: I don't remember saying that. If I had referred to then chief judge of Malaya Datuk Ahmad Fairuz's (Sheikh Abdul Halim) name, then I am sorry. But I was bull****ting and bragging.

Ranjit: Are you suggesting that you were bull****ting and bragging?

Lingam: Yes, I could be bull****ting and bragging.

Ranjit then referred to the clip which showed several wine, whisky and 7-Up bottles.

He asked Lingam whether the lawyer was now claiming to be tipsy after seeing the bottles in the clip.

"That is quite a lot for people to drink and get drunk," Lingam said.

Commission chairman Tan Sri Haidar Mohamed Noor asked Lingam why Mui Fah and Gwo Burne, who claimed to be social friends, would go against him.

Lingam: If they believe that I was involved in fixing judges, they should have gone to the ACA or the police and made a report. They should have said, "Charge this fellow" but they kept the clip for over six years.

Commission member Datuk Mahadev Shankar also asked Lingam whether he was disputing that the person in the photograph taken in New Zealand was him (Lingam).

Lingam said he was not disputing it.

Mahadev: Why is it that when it comes to the clip, you are now saying that it might not be you? How many per cent of that is you?

Lingam: I only said that the man in the clip looks and sounds like me. I did not say he was 100 per cent like me. I do not want to enter into a mathematical debate.

He added that the expert findings by Mohd Zabri Adil Talib on the identity and the voice of the man in the clip was fundamentally flawed.

"I will be the first to admit if my experts say so.

"Until then, I will not confirm without the report," he said.

Haidar then interjected that Mui Fah and Gwo Burne had positively identified that he was the man in the clip.

"You will have my evidence.

"Fairness demands that I be given the opportunity. I think I have made myself clear about the matter," Lingam said.

Earlier, Ranjit tendered eight photographs of Lingam and former chief justice Tun Eusoff Chin and their families during a vacation in new Zealand.

Clearly irritated by the production of the photo- graphs, Lingam asked whether they should be accepted as evidence as the negatives were not produced.

Ranjit replied that the negatives were now with lawyer Datuk Muhammad Shafee Abdullah and they would be tendered as evidence.

He said Shafee was prepared to testify before the commission.