Isa Samad graft case's end of defence submissions postponed to next month due to CMCO

KUALA LUMPUR (Nov 4): Submissions for the end of former Federal Land Development Authority (Felda) chairman Tan Sri Mohd Isa Abdul Samad’s (pictured) defence in his graft case in relation to a hotel purchase in Sarawak have been deferred to Dec 4 due to the conditional movement control order (CMCO).

This was confirmed by High Court registrar Mahyudin Mohmad Som to theedgemarkets.com.

“The Dec 4 date is a date suitable for all parties (both the prosecution and defence),” he said.

The defence closed its case on Sept 3, with Justice Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali initially fixing today for oral submissions. A total of six defence witnesses, including Isa, testified in the trial, while 15 prosecution witnesses gave evidence.

On June 16, Isa was ordered by Justice Nazlan to enter his defence against nine counts of graft charges in relation to a total of RM3.09 million received from Ikhwan Zaidel, a director of Syarikat Gegasan Abadi Properties Sdn Bhd.

Syarikat Gegasan previously owned the Merdeka Palace Hotel and Suites in Kuching, and sold the property to Felda Investment Corp Sdn Bhd (FIC), a subsidiary of Felda, for RM160 million — an amount the prosecution contended was overinflated.

All the offences were allegedly committed on Level 49, Menara Felda, Platinum Park, No 11, Persiaran KLCC, Kuala Lumpur between July 21, 2014, and Dec 11, 2015.

The graft charges were made under Section 16 of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) Act 2009 and, if found guilty, Isa faces a maximum of 20 years in jail and a fine of up to five times the amount of bribes he received.

Isa was, however, acquitted without his defence called for a criminal breach of trust (CBT) charge.

Meanwhile, in an unrelated development, the Federal Court registrar today in a statement said that the scheduled Seremban and Lenggeng immigration court proceedings had been deferred due to the implementation of the CMCO, effective tomorrow until Nov 18.

However, the registration and case management of all cases would proceed as scheduled.

Yesterday, Senior Minister (Security Cluster) Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob said the CMCO covers nine sub-districts, namely Ampangan, Seremban, Seremban town, Labu, Rantau, Rasah, Setul, Pantai and Lenggeng.

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