High Court grants Shafee temporary access to passport

KUALA LUMPUR: The High Court has granted Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah temporary access to his passport so that he can travel to Sydney for an assignment.

The lead counsel for Datuk Seri Najib Razak's 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) trial sought five day's access to his passport from Sept 12 to 16 in order to attend to a case in which he was the local counsel there.

Muhammad Shafee said this would not affect the 1MDB trial as he is expected to return by the afternoon of Sept 16 and possibly a day earlier.

Representing himself, he told Justice Collin Lawrence Sequerah that he received a disc from Australia through a local agency containing over 1,000 pages of evidence on Monday (Sept 2) evening.

"I would make an oral application that instead of the 13th, I ask for Yang Arif's kind indulgence that my release on the passport ought to be from the 12th to the 16th.

"I'll be back by the afternoon of the 16th, possibly even 15th. The 16th is still a public holiday. All my applications, Yang Arif, I will not disrupt even an hour," Muhammad Shafee said.

He added that another reason was the hospitalisation of two of his relatives, one due to dengue in Ampang Puteri and another due to heart attack in Damansara.

Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Ahmad Akram Gharib submitted that he has strict instructions to object the application because Muhammad Shafee was a flight risk.

Justice Sequerah eventually granted Muhammad Shafee's application.

Meanwhile, the court adjourned early at 1.06pm as Muhammad Shafee needed to rush to the funeral of his dengue-infected relative who passed away shortly after he applied for access to his passport.

There were no objections from the prosecution team led by Datuk Seri Gopal Sri Ram.

Muhammad Shafee is facing two charges of money laundering involving RM9.5mil that he allegedly received from Najib.

He was also charged under the Income Tax Act with two counts of making false declarations to the Inland Revenue Board by not including the RM9.5mil in his tax filing for the year.

On June 21, the Court of Appeal granted the release of his passport to travel to Sydney from June 24 to July 1.

On May 14, the High Court here dismissed Muhammad Shafee's application for the release of the passport to attend to a Malaysian client who is facing drug-trafficking charges in Australia.