Prosecution deliberately delaying trial - RPK

PETALING JAYA: Malaysia Today editor Raja Petra Raja Kamarudin claimed the prosecution was deliberately delaying his sedition trial when the complainant in his case was not available to be questioned by his defence team on Thursday.

“Why must the prosecution bring this case to court today just to amend the charge and postpone it?,” Raja Petra, 58, told the Sessions Court.

“How long are we going to wait for Supt Gan Tack Guan (chief investigator in the Altantuya Shaariibuu murder case and the complainant in Raja Petra’s sedition trial)?

“He was on medical leave earlier and is now gone for training,” he said.

The former ISA detainee had on May 6 claimed trial to publishing a seditious article on his Malaysia Today news portal on April 25.

He is accused of publishing the article Let’s send the Altantuya murderers to hell on the website www.malaysia-today.net.

When told by Sessions Court judge Rozina Ayob that he only had to record his plea over the amended charge, Raja Petra said: “I plead not guilty and I protest the delay.”

The amendment inserted the title of the seditious article and the addition of the URL of the article to the first page of the appendix attached to the sedition charge.

The Shah Alam High Court had on Monday allowed an application by the prosecution to revise the lower court decision which had disallowed amendments to the charge.

DPP Roslan Mat Nor said the prosecution did not intend to delay the trial and that Supt Gan was not subpoenaed for the trial as he was attending training in Taiwan which would end on Dec 21.

“I have ordered the investigating officer to ask his (Supt Gan’s) office to fax a copy of a letter on the training to tender to the court,” he said.

DPP Roslan said the prosecution was asking for a two-week adjournment to allow the seventh witness, computer forensic investigator Asst Supt Wa’ie Isqal Kria Abdullah, to extract documents from two computers seized from Raja Petra as ordered by the court earlier.

“We have identified the documents from the folders (in the computers) and we need to open those folders so that we can give a copy to the defence,” he said.

However, he said the defence could also cross-examine Cyber Security Malaysia senior digital forensic analyst S. Sivanathan, 28.

Lead counsel J. Chandra said the prosecution’s application was a waste of judicial time.

“We reserve our right to raise an objection upon being served the (new) documents,” he said, adding that Sivanathan was called to intepret the documents extracted by ASP Wa’ie and would be questioned later.

Lawyer Gobind Singh Deo asked the court to direct the prosecution to close the case if they were unable to call Supt Gan to be cross-examined.

“Supt Gan is aware that the hearing has been fixed for four days but he deliberately chose to go away. He is a police officer and should know the procedure,” he contended.

Rozina said Supt Gan was not subpoened and set three days from Feb 10 for continuation of the trial. (TheStar)