KOTA KINABALU: The Election Court has thrown out the Sipitang parliamentary election petition without a full hearing today.
Judge Azhahri Kamal Ramli made the decision after the petitioner’s counsels, representing Parti Warisan Sabah, failed to submit the required documents within the given time frame and requested for a postponement.
The petition, in which trial was supposed to start today, was filed by Warisan candidate Noor Hayaty Mustapha, who was represented by a counsel team led by Chung Jiun Dau.
In the 14th General Election (GE14), the Sipitang parliamentary seat was won by Yamani Hafez Musa, who had campaigned under the Barisan Nasional (BN) ticket, with an 852-vote majority, defeating his rivals from Warisan and Parti Harapan Rakyat Sabah.
The trial on the election petition was to nullify the results. Yamani, who is the son of former Sabah chief minister Tan Sri Musa Aman, was represented by a counsel team led by Jeyan Marimuttu.
Speaking to reporters outside the courtroom, counsel Syarulnizam Salleh, who is one of the lawyers representing the Election Commission (EC), said the petitioner’s counsel had requested the court to postpone the trial to another date in May because of incomplete documents.
“However, the judge did not agree to the adjournment and struck out the whole petition on grounds that he (judge) was not satisfied with reasons given by the petitioner. They had been given one week (to complete and file in documents),” he said.
The trial dates for Sipitang had previously been fixed on April 8-12, June 17-28, July 1-12 and July 23-31.
On Oct 15, last year, the petition was struck out by the Election Court here, but the Putrajaya Federal Court ordered that the petition be remitted to the Election Court for trial.
In a separate Election Court for the Kimanis parliament election petition trial, the court heard how a sum of money was given to one Mohd Rezza Akmad Namil, 30, on 8 May 2018.
The petition was filed by Datuk Karim Bujang of Warisan to challenge the victory of Datuk Seri Anifah Aman, who won with a 156-vote majority under a BN ticket in the three-cornered fight, securing 11,942 votes against Karim and Parti Harapan Rakyat’s Jaafar Ismail, who garnered 11,786 votes and 1,300 votes respectively.
Rezza, who was called to testify as first petitioner’s witness, told the court that he had received RM200 and RM650 from two individuals — Haji Latif and Haji Musa — who claimed the money were from Anifah and Datuk Mohd Ariffin Mohd Arif (Membakut assemblyman).
During cross-examination by counsel Ansari Abdullah, who represented Anifah, Rezza agreed that giving and receiving bribe money was a sin in Islam and an offence under the EC as well as Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission Act 2009.
Rezza also told the court he did not lodge a police report regarding the money and disagreed with Ansari, who questioned the reasons the witness did not report it was because he (witness) had never received the RM850 nor did he have the money in his possession.
Ansari: I put it to you that you do not have any personal knowledge and see with your own eyes that the money handout was from Datuk Anifah and Datuk Ariffin?
Rezza: I disagree.
Ansari: Then tell the court when did you see Datuk Anifah giving money to Haji Latif and Haji Musa?
Rezza: I did not see. I was told by Haji Latif that the RM200 and RM650 were from Datuk Anifah and Datuk Ariffin. The RM650 was given to me by Hj Musa.
Rezza also told the court he did not have any document of evidence to show that he had received RM850.
The trial conducted before Judge Datuk Lee Heng Cheong will resume tomorrow.