Last Friday, former sessions court judge Zunaidah Mohd Idris was produced in the Raub sessions court where she had sat as presiding judge from 2004 to 2005 and charged with falsifying a document written by magistrate Nurul Mardhiah Redza in relation to a drug case in the magistrate’s court.
Zunaidah, 48, pleaded not guilty to committing the offence in her chambers on Sept. 14, 2005.
If convicted, Zunaidah can be sentenced to seven years’ jail and fined. She was released on RM2,000 bail and the hearing fixed for July 8.
Without getting into the merits of the charge, the prosecution handling of the case has raised questions.
Firstly, deputy public prosecutor Mohamad Hanafiah Zakaria told the court the prosecution would be conducted by prosecution division head of the Attorney-General’s Chambers Datuk Mohd Yusof Zainal Abiden.
This has raised eyebrows and question why the head of the Attorney-General’s Chambers is conducting the prosecution of this comparatively minor case when neither he nor the Attorney-General is conducting the prosecution in the high-profile Mongolian Altantunya Shariibuu murder trial with its far reaching political and good governance implications.
Zunaidah was the sessions court judge in Klang on Nov. 26, 2007 who granted a discharge not amounting to an acquittal to three Hindraf leaders P. Uthayakumar, P. Waytha Moorthy and V. Ganapathi Rao who had faced sedition charges.
After her decision, Zunaidah was taken off the Klang Sessions Court and transferred to the Attorney-General’s Chambers in Putrajaya and assigned to administrative duties.
Was Zunaidah’s charge for falsifying a document going back to September 2005 in any way related to her decision to reject the prosecution case in setting the three Hindraf leaders free at the Klang Sessions Court on charges of sedition, by granting a discharge not amounting to an acquittal?