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A notice of appeal was filed at the Court of Appeal registry earlier today.
When contacted, Attorney-General Ahmad Terrirudin Salleh confirmed the matter.
“Yes, we filed it today,” he said in a text message.
The prosecution will now await the Court of Appeal’s full judgment before filing its petition of appeal to the Federal Court to state where it had erred in law and facts.
Justice Vazeer Alam Mydin Meera, who led a three-member bench, said yesterday that the High Court had committed an appealable error warranting intervention.
As such, he said the appeal was allowed and the conviction and sentence quashed.
Other judges who heard Isa’s appeal were Justices Ahmad Zaidi Ibrahim and SM Komathy Suppiah.
In 2021, Justice Nazlan Ghazali, now in the Court of Appeal, found Isa guilty of nine corruption charges involving RM3.09 million.
Isa was sentenced to six years in prison and fined RM15.4 million.
Vazeer said the prosecutors had presented two different narratives of their case and that in such a scenario, the benefit of doubt must be given to the accused.
He said the trial judge had also misdirected himself when ruling that a prima facie case was established based on the evidence of businessman Ikhwan Zaidel, a former director of the hotel.
Likewise, the prosecution’s case was that Isa had instructed his special officer Zahid Arip to collect money from Ikhwan, but Vazeer said Ikhwan told the court that Isa had never directly requested any gratification.
Vazeer added that Zahid was not a credible prosecution witness due to material contradictions in his testimony.
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