Lawyer N Sivananthan, representing former military doctor R Kunaseegaran, said he had written to the Court of Appeal registrar to direct the trial judge to provide the written judgment as soon as possible.

“We can only file our petition of appeal after reading the judge’s grounds of judgment,” he told FMT.

Likewise, he wants the High Court in Kuala Lumpur to prepare the record of appeal which includes the notes of evidence and exhibits.

“The Court of Appeal can only fix a date to hear the appeal after these documents have been compiled.”

Kunaseegaran, along with R Dinishwaran, AK Thinesh Kumar, M Vishwanath, S Nimalan and S Ravi Chandaran, were found guilty on July 10 of murdering Morais.

They had been in remand since September 2015 as bail is prohibited in murder cases.

Judge Azman Abdullah said the prosecution had proven its case beyond reasonable doubt that the six committed the offence on Sept 4, 2015 between Jalan Dutamas Raya Sentul in Kuala Lumpur and No. 1, Jalan USJ 1/6D, Subang Jaya.

Counsel Sheelan Arjunan, representing the five other men, said the Court of Appeal had fixed case management on Nov 19.

He said his clients had instructed him to file an application for the appeal to be treated on an urgent basis, pursuant to Rule 22 of the Rules of the Court of Appeal.

This rule states that the Court of Appeal president can expedite an appeal if satisfied that the case warrants an urgent hearing.

“This appeal should be heard quickly as it has been classified as a public interest case,” Sheelan said.

The trial began at the High Court in January 2016, with 70 witnesses testifying at the prosecution stage.

Deputy public prosecutors Saiful Edris Zainuddin and Wan Shaharuddin Wan Ladin appeared for the prosecution.

Saiful said the trial took about four and a half years due to numerous adjournments by the defence, change of counsel and filing of interlocutory applications that went up on appeal.

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