Aldrin Pratama Widjaja will now have a chance to prove that he is not Paiman Shakimon.
This follows the Court of Appeal’s decision today to order the High Court to hold an inquiry to determine whether it was Paiman or Aldrin who committed the offence 18 years ago.
Bench chairman Hadhariah Syed Ismail said it was not safe to send a person to serve a sentence when there was a dispute over his identity, adding that the case also involved personal liberty.
The prosecution’s reliance on the biometric (fingerprint) of a man known as Paiman was insufficient, said Hadhariah, who sat with Justices Azman Abdullah and Azmi Ariffin.
The bench then allowed Aldrin’s appeal to set aside a Dec 2, 2021, warrant of committal to serve the jail sentence against the person known as Paiman.
Initially a man named Paiman was arrested, charged and found guilty in the sessions court. He then appealed against the jail sentence at the High Court and was allowed RM750,000 bail. However, he absconded.
Police rearrested Paiman nine years later.
The prosecution is insisting that Paiman and Aldrin are the same person. However, Aldrin claims it is a case of mistaken identity.
Aldrin managed to obtain a stay of execution from another Court of Appeal last year after posting a RM1 million bail pending his appeal that he was denied the right to be heard on his identity by High Court judge Jamil Hussin.
Hadhariah said the prosecution and the defence must first agree on the mode of the inquiry before presenting oral and documentary evidence before Jamil.
Today, Aldrin’s counsel Hisyam Teh Poh Teik submitted that the High Court had breached the rules of natural justice when Aldrin’s request to hold an inquiry on the identity of the offender was refused.
Deputy public prosecutor Asmah Musa submitted that the biometric evidence was reliable enough to prove a person’s identity, and that the High Court did not make any error.
“The investigating officer and the national registration department (JPN) official had affirmed affidavits that Aldrin is Paiman,” she said.
Paiman was sentenced to 26 years in prison by the sessions court on April 19, 2011, after being found guilty on two counts of cheating and two counts of falsifying documents involving RM12 million belonging to victims in an investment fraud case between 2005 and 2006.
Sessions judge BS Jagjit Singh ordered the jail sentences to run concurrently, which meant he would have to serve 13 years.
The case went on appeal to the High Court and Jamil ordered him to serve the jail sentence imposed by the sessions court.
Asmah had said in the High Court that the accused had entered Malaysia using an Indonesian passport, and checks using his biometric fingerprints at JPN found that he was indeed Paiman.
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