KUALA LUMPUR, 6 March 2009: Opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim filed an appeal today against the High Court’s order that his sodomy case be tried in the High Court.
The notice of appeal filed at the High Court Registry here at 10.40am through SN Nair and Partners.
Yesterday, High Court judge Datuk Mohamad Zabidin Mohd Diah allowed the prosecution’s application and set aside the Sessions Court’s decision to retain the trial at the Sessions Court.
Mohamad Zabidin held that Sessions Court judge SM Komathy Suppiah had erred in law in ruling that the certificate to transfer the case to the High Court, signed by Attorney-General Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail, was invalid.
Abdul Gani, in signing the transfer certificate, was not exercising a judicial or quasi-judicial function but was merely performing an administrative function involving the exercise of his discretionary power, he said.
Anwar had challenged the validity of the transfer certificate claiming that Abdul Gani could not sign the document because he was still under investigation by the Anti-Corruption Agency, now called the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission, in connection with Anwar’s police report on the “black eye” incident.
Anwar, 62, is charged with sodomising his former aide, 23-year-old Mohamad Saiful Bukhari Azlan, at Unit 11-5-1, Desa Damansara Condominium, Jalan Setiakasih, Bukit Damansara between 3.01pm and 4.30pm on 26 June 2008. — Bernama
