High Court judge Collin Lawrence Sequerah ordered that Shafee’s passport be released until Jan 17.

Shafee’s lawyer Wan Aizuddin Wan Mohammed said it was common practice for lawyers from the peninsula to get work permits from the Sabah immigration.

“He’s handling a criminal case at the Tawau High Court. As a lawyer from Peninsular Malaysia, to practise in Sabah, he needs to get ad hoc permission. He also needs to get a work permit from the Sabah immigration.

“So he needs his international passport for this,” he told reporters after proceedings today.

Shafee was told to surrender his passport to the court on Sept 13, when he was slapped with four charges of money laundering in connection with the RM9.5 million payment from former prime minister Najib Razak.

The charges were made under Section 4 (1) of the Anti-Money Laundering, Anti-Terrorism Financing and Proceeds of Unlawful Activities Act (Amla) 2001.

In the first two charges, Shafee was accused of receiving payments of RM4.3 million and RM5.2 million between August 2013 and January 2014.

In the following charges, he was accused of making false declarations to the Inland Revenue Board for the same amount between March and June 2015.

If convicted under Section 4 (1) of Amla, Shafee faces a maximum jail sentence of 15 years for the false declaration charges and five years for receiving the RM9.5 million.

He also faces a maximum fine of RM5 million or five times the money received.

This was after opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim filed a suit against Shafee in June, saying he had been denied a fair trial following allegations by whistleblower site Sarawak Report that RM9.5 million was transferred to Shafee from Najib’s private account.

The PKR leader said the Court of Appeal’s decision on March 7, 2014 to convict him of sodomising Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan was made in an unconstitutional manner.