Prosecution appeals to set aside Peter’s stay of conviction

Kuala Lumpur: The prosecution has filed an appeal to overturn a sessions court ruling staying the conviction for forgery involving Parti Kesejahteraan Demokratik Masyarakat (KDM) president Datuk Peter Anthony pending his appeal to the High Court.

Deputy public prosecutor Wan Shaharuddin Wan Ladin said a notice of appeal was filed, here, Friday.

According to appellate procedure, the trial court is required to prepare its grounds of judgment after which the appellant will file his petition of appeal outlining legal and factual errors made by the presiding judge.

On Monday, sessions court judge Azura Alwi allowed Peter’s stay application after reviewing the affidavits filed, relevant case law as well as the written and oral submissions by Peter’s lawyers and the prosecution.

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Peter filed the application to stay his conviction in June to allow him to contest a parliamentary seat in the 15th general election (GE15), which must be held by September next year.

Lawyer D Senthinathan, who filed an affidavit in support of Peter’s application, said there were special circumstances to warrant a stay of the conviction.

Azura had on May 26 sentenced Peter to three years’ jail after finding him guilty of falsifying a letter from the office of Universiti Malaysia Sabah’s (UMS) deputy vice-chancellor for certain system maintenance contract work.

The Melalap Assemblyman was also fined RM50,000, or 15 months’ jail in default.

In his submissions, another of Peter’s lawyers, S Devanandan, relied on Najib Razak’s SRC International case as a binding precedent.

Najib’s conviction by the High Court on seven charges of power abuse, criminal breach of trust (CBT) and money laundering involving RM42 million belonging to SRC International, was affirmed by the Court of Appeal. He has since appealed to the Federal Court.

Despite ruling against him, the Court of Appeal stayed the former prime minister’s sentence and conviction pending disposal of his appeal in the apex court.

Peter had only applied for a stay of sentence after his conviction on May 26. He later filed an application to stay the conviction on June 3.

Both the federal and state constitutions state that an MP or assemblyman will be disqualified if convicted of an offence and sentenced to a jail term of more than one year and fined more than RM2,000, unless he receives a pardon.

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