KUALA LUMPUR (Jan 12): It has been more than four months since Kinabatangan Member of Parliament (MP) Datuk Seri Bung Moktar Radin and his wife Datin Seri Zizie Izette Abdul Samad walked free in their graft case, but the records of appeals are still not ready.

This has caused further delay in the prosecution’s appeal over High Court judge Datuk Azhar Abdul Hamid’s decision to acquit the duo in their corruption case involving RM2.8 million related to a Felcra Bhd investment.

Following a case management on Friday, deputy public prosecutor Law Chin How confirmed with The Edge that the appeal records were still not ready. The court has fixed another case management for Feb 5.

In criminal appeals, the court registry prepares and delivers to parties the appeal records, which would contain the notes of evidence, exhibits and grounds of judgement.

It is common practice for the court to prepare the appeal records in about eight weeks following a verdict.

The prosecution, who filed their notice of appeal on Sept 18, need the record in order to file their grounds of appeal.

Bung Moktar and Zizie were acquitted on Sept 7 after the High Court allowed their revision application challenging Sessions Court judge Rozina Ayob earlier, ruling that the prosecution had established a prima-facie case against the Sabah Barisan Nasional (BN) chairman and his wife.

Azhar ruled that this was a fit and proper case for the court to exercise its revisionary power under the Criminal Procedure Code (CPC), and acquitted and discharged the duo.

In his decision, Azhar said that there was no evidence that Public Mutual investment agent Madhi Abdul Hamid and Unit Amanah consultant Norhaili Ahmad Mokhtar, the two star-witnesses in the trial, had given money to Bung Moktar through his wife.

In May 2019, Bung Moktar who was then the non-executive chairman of Felcra, was charged with accepting bribes of RM2.2 million and RM262,500 from Madhi and RM337,500 from Norhaili through Zizie as gratification to obtain Felcra’s approval to make a RM150 million investment in the Public Mutual unit trust. Zizie faced three abetment charges for the offences committed in 2015. 

Both prosecution witnesses had given evidence in court which contradicted their statements given to the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC). Addressing this in her decision, Rozina said that she looked at the evidence before her in its totality.