With Karpal Singh's death, Anwar's lawyers now have to assemble a formidable defence team to argue his appeal aganst the sodomy conviction in the Federal Court. – The Malaysian Insider file pic, April 20, 2014.The late Karpal Singh's funeral is today but his most famous client, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, has a more pressing matter at hand - to meet a deadline this Friday to appeal against his sodomy conviction by the Court of Appeal.
The petition has to be filed in the Federal Court by April 25.
Karpal, 73, died in a road accident on the North-South Expressway near Kampar, Perak early Thursday morning. He was on his way to Penang to represent a client in a murder trial and spend the weekend meeting constituents in his Bukit Gelugor parliamentary seat.
PKR legal bureau head Latheefa Koya told The Malaysian Insider she had spoken to lawyer Zaleha Al-Hayat who was in Karpal's legal team on how best to assist in the drafting of the petition of appeal.
"We are also studying the Court of Appeal judgment to contribute to the grounds of appeal," she said.
Latheefa (pic, right) said a meeting would be held with Anwar on the next course of action, including assembling a formidable legal team to argue the appeal in the Federal Court.
"For now our concern is to file the petition on time but we could also apply for an extension of time due to exceptional circumstances," Latheefa said.
On Wednesday evening, hours before the accident which killed him and his personal aide Michael Cornelius, Karpal told The Malaysian Insider at his office in Kuala Lumpur that he would file the petition on April 24.
His legal firm had received the grounds of judgment on Wednesday which marked the beginning of the 10-day period to file the petition of appeal.
Karpal had said he would draft the grounds where the Court of Appeal had gone wrong in setting aside the acquittal of Anwar by the High Court while he was in Penang.
The lawyer said he needed time to go through the written grounds as it was a 85-page judgment.
During the sodomy trial, Karpal was assisted by lawyers S. N. Nair, Datuk Param Cumaraswamy, Datuk C. V. Prabhakaran and Ramkarpal Singh.
On March 7, a Court of Appeal bench led by Datuk Balia Yusof Wahi overturned the High Court’s acquittal and sentenced Anwar to five years’ jail.
The court allowed a stay on the sentence pending the outcome of Anwar's appeal in the Federal Court, and allowed bail of RM10,000 bail with one surety.
Anwar, 66, was convicted of sodomising his aide, Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan, at an upscale condominium in Bukit Damansara on June 26, 2008.
Putrajaya has cross-appealed to increase the jail term.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.