PETALING JAYA: The Melaka election court has issued an arrest warrant for Bersatu Youth permanent chairman Akmal Zahin Zainal Zahir after he failed to appear as a witness during a trial today.
Akmal Zahin was supposed to testify in a petition challenging the result of last November’s Masjid Tanah parliamentary seat election, New Straits Times reported.
High Court Justice Abu Bakar Katar issued the warrant after Akmal Zahin failed to attend the proceedings to testify on allegations that he bribed voters during the election.
During the trial, the court was shown a video of Akmal Zahin handing out envelopes allegedly containing cash to voters in Masjid Tanah.
Masjid Tanah MP Mas Ermieyati Samsuddin’s former private secretary, Noor Hashimah Noordin, has also been issued an arrest warrant by the same court for failing to appear as a witness.
BN’s Masjid Tanah candidate, Abdul Hakim Abdul Wahid, had sought to challenge Mas Ermieyati’s victory in the last general election (GE15) after claiming that there were elements of bribery during the election campaign that affected the election results.
Mas Ermieyati, who is also the Masjid Tanah Bersatu chief, won the seat with a majority of 4,411 votes.
In January, Hakim filed an election petition after claiming that bribery, in the form of money and banquets, was used to woo voters in Masjid Tanah.
The court later rejected Hakim’s petition after it accepted preliminary objections raised by Mas Ermieyati.
In May, the Federal Court overturned the decision and ordered the lower court to conduct a full hearing after a three-member panel led by Chief Justice Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat held that there were issues that needed to be examined in a full hearing.
