Lionel Morais, Amin Shah Iskandar and Zulkifli Sulong walks out of The Edge office shortly after their arrest yesterday. – The Malaysian Insider pic, March 31, 2015.
The Magistrate's Court today rejected an application by police to remand The Malaysian Insider (TMI) managing editor, Lionel Morais, Malay section editor Amin Shah Iskandar and features and analysis editor, Zulkifli Sulong.
Zulkifli's daughter, Nadia Zulkifli, who is among the lawyers representing them, said the three are expected to be released from the Dang Wangi police station at 7pm today.
Another lawyer for the three, Syahredzan Johan (pic, right) tweeted that remand was rejected by magistrate Tuan Nazri Omran.
Syahredzan said he had submitted to the magistrate that the three had given full cooperation to the police.
"We even told them who wrote the article. So there is no need to detain them further," he said.
The three were arrested yesterday over the portal's report on March 25 that the Conference of Rulers had rejected a plan to amend a federal law that would allow hudud, or the Islamic penal code, to be enforced in Kelantan.
However, TMI chief executive Jahabar Sadiq and The Edge Media Group CEO, Ho Kay Tat, are still being detained.
The duo were arrested this morning at the Dang Wangi police station when they went to give their statements. The Edge Media Group owns TMI.
Police said they would apply for a remand order for Ho and Jahabar.
Syahredzan said the duo would be spending the night in custody.
The arrests are part of investigations after a police report was lodged by an official from the Conference of Rulers last week. Another report was lodged against the portal by Kedah Umno Youth.
Police confiscated the editors' phones and a laptop to facilitate investigations.
Lionel, Amin and Zulkifli spent the night at the Dang Wangi police station.
Civil society leader and former Bar Council president Datuk Ambiga Sreenevasan came to the remand hearing at the Dang Wangi police station this morning.
The report published on March 25 said the Conference of Rulers had rejected a proposal to amend a federal law that would pave the way for hudud to be enforced in Kelantan.
The article said that the proposal to amend the law was in a report by the joint Hudud Technical Committee, which comprised Kelantan state religious officials and those from the federal government. The joint committee had prepared the report on the proposed amendments for the rulers to consider at their meeting on March 11, but it did not go through.
The Keeper of the Rulers' Seal lodged a police report on March 26 to deny that the Conference of Rulers had discussed the matter, saying it had never issued any statement on hudud in Kelantan.
- TMI
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