Thursday 28 Mar 2024
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PUTRAJAYA (April 19): Senior lawyer Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah has withdrawn his appeal to disqualify senior Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Datuk Seri Gopal Sri Ram from prosecuting him in his RM9.5 million income tax evasion and money laundering trial.

As such, the hearing of the appeal scheduled for Wednesday (April 20) in the Court of Appeal won't be taking place.

Shafee's notice of discontinuance of appeal was separately confirmed by the Court of Appeal and DPP Afzainizam Abdul Aziz.

Afzainizam is presently leading the prosecution team in the trial before Justice Datuk Muhammad Jamil Hussin in the High Court.

Shafee's initial application to disqualify Sri Ram from prosecuting him was dismissed by the High Court in April 2019.

At the time, he had also filed a separate application to seek a judicial review over Sri Ram's appointment by the Attorney-General to prosecute him. This judicial review application was filed along with former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak's. The latter was seeking to remove Sri Ram from prosecuting him in the 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB)-Tanore trial and the 1MDB audit report tampering trial.

The judicial review applications by Shafee and Najib have both been dismissed by the High Court.

The 70-year-old Shafee has been charged with receiving money derived from illegal activities amounting to RM9.5 million, through two cheques of RM4.3 million on Sept 5, 2013 and RM5.2 million on Feb 14, 2014 respectively, which were issued by Najib and deposited into the lawyer's CIMB Bank Bhd account.

He is also facing two charges of engaging in transactions resulting from illegal activities, namely submitting incorrect tax returns, which violate paragraph 113(1)(a) of the Income Tax Act 1967, for the financial years ended Dec 31, 2013 and 2014.

Edited ByTan Choe Choe
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