PUTRAJAYA (Nov 7): The Court of Appeal (COA) on Tuesday adjourned the hearing of the appeals of six men, including medical doctor Col (Rtd) Dr K Kunaseegaran, who were convicted of the murder of Deputy Public Prosecutor Datuk Anthony Kevin Morais.
Judge Datuk Hadhariah Syed Ismail, who led the three-member bench, allowed the final adjournment to next month, after counsel M Manoharan informed the court that he had just been appointed to represent R Dinishvaran by the court on Oct 31, and hence needs time to prepare the case.
Manoharan said although the appellate court had given the link to the records, he was not well versed in downloading the documents and hence, needed a short adjournment date to see the record of appeal.
Kunaseegaran’s counsel Datuk N Sivananthan, who appeared with Jasmine Chong, informed the court that he and the other lawyers representing the remaining five accused, had no objection.
The prosecution, led by Deputy Public Prosecutor Datuk Mohd Dusuki Mokhtar, also told the court that they also do not have objections.
Following that, Hadhariah, who sat with appellate court judges Datuk Ahmad Zaidi Ibrahim and Datuk Azmi Arifin, fixed Dec 4, 7, 14 as the final hearing dates of the appeal.
Kunaseegaran, 60, Dinishvaran, 31, along with money-lender S Ravi Chandaran, 52, and unemployed individuals AK Thinesh Kumar, 30, M Vishwanath, 30, and S Nimalan, 30, were found guilty of murdering Morais somewhere along Jalan Dutamas Raya Sentul and No 1, Jalan USJ 1/6D, Subang Jaya, between 7am and 8pm on Sept 4, 2015.
Following the guilty verdict, they were sentenced by High Court judge (now COA judge) Datuk Azman Abdullah to the death sentence.
Azman ruled that their defence failed to create doubts to the prosecution’s case against them.
The other lawyers representing the four of them were Afifuddin Ahmad Hafifi, Kitson Foong, Burhanuddin Abdul Wahid and Amer Hamzah Arshad.