PUTRAJAYA: The Court of Appeal has fixed March 5 to hear former Umno Supreme Council member Datuk Lokman Noor Adam’s appeal to set aside the leave obtained by the Attorney-General (AG) to initiate committal proceedings against him.
The date was set by deputy registrar Laila Lateh during case management.
Present at the case management were deputy public prosecutor Jasmee Hameeza Jaafar for the prosecution while lawyer Wan Aizuddin Wan Mohammed appeared for Lokman.
Lokman has filed an appeal against the decision of the High Court on Jan 14, this year, which dismissed his application to set aside the leave obtained by AG Tan Sri Tommy Thomas to initiate committal proceedings against him for allegedly intimidating a witness in Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) case.
Earlier, the Court of Appeal three-member bench led by Justice Datuk Yaacob Md Sam sent the matter for case management to set the appeal hearing date after both the prosecution and defence agreed for an early appeal hearing date be fixed.
Lokman’s application for a stay of the committal proceedings inter parte hearing pending his appeal was scheduled to be heard at the Court of Appeal today.
However, Lokman’s lawyer Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah suggested to the court that an early hearing date be fixed for the appeal instead of proceeding with the stay application.
He suggested that the hearing date be fixed before March 13 as the hearing of the inter parte contempt proceedings at the High Court was set on that day and requested the matter to be sent to the registrar to fix the appeal hearing date to which deputy public prosecutor Datuk Mohd Dusuki Mokhtar agreed.
On Oct 22 last year, the High Court granted leave for the AG to initiate committal proceedings against Lokman for contempt of court acts perpetrated on two occasions on Sept 25, last year.
In the application, the AG sought an order for Lokman to be committed to prison or be fined for his actions.
— BERNAMA
