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PUTRAJAYA: Former Sabah minister Datuk Peter Anthony will stay in jail after failing his final attempt at the Court of Appeal to overturn his conviction and three-year prison sentence in his forgery case.
A three-judge panel, chaired by Justice Azman Abdullah, unanimously ruled that there was no merit in his revision application.
Peter, 54, had filed the application to have the court revise a decision by an earlier panel which upheld his conviction and sentence.
He had first been convicted and sentenced by the Kuala Lumpur Sessions Court in May 2022. On April 18, 2023, the Kuala Lumpur High Court upheld the conviction and sentence.
Justice Azman said yesterday that the court did not find any miscarriage of justice in a police report lodged by the third prosecution witness, Mohd Shukor Mohd Din (now deceased), on Aug 9, 2018.
Mohd Shukor, the then deputy vice-chancellor of Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS), had said he made his statement to police under duress.
This was admitted as fresh evidence at the Court of Appeal level.
Peter contended that the court did not address the issue in the broad grounds of judgment in March, and claimed it was a breach of natural justice.
The Court of Appeal at yesterday’s hearing disagreed.
It said the absence of the issue in the broad grounds of judgment did not amount to failure of justice as it had been fully commented on in the full grounds of judgment.
“It is tough for us to assume that this issue was not considered just because it was not stated or commented on in the broad grounds by the earlier panel,” Justice Azman said, adding that it was not the court’s duty to rehear questions involving matters that had already been decided.
“We find there is no breach of natural justice as the applicant was given the right to be heard. The application is dismissed.”
Other judges on the panel were Justices Noorin Badaruddin and Hayatul Akmal Aziz.
On March 14, Peter filed a notice of motion seeking a review and setting aside of his conviction and sentence handed down by the Court of Appeal on March 4.
He had been accused, in his capacity as managing director of Asli Jati Sdn Bhd, of falsifying a letter from the UMS office of the deputy vice-chancellor dated June 9, 2014, by inserting false statements with the intent to deceive.
