Deputy public prosecutor (DPP) Wan Shaharuddin Wan Ladin said the trial judge had correctly applied the maximum evaluation when assessing the evidence of all prosecution witnesses in coming to his decision.
“The Court of Appeal bench erred in stating that Syed Saddiq’s defence should not have been called,” he said during submissions before a three-member bench chaired by Justice Abu Bakar Jais.
Also on the apex court panel hearing the appeal were Justices Che Ruzima Ghazali and Collin Lawrence Sequerah.
The prosecution is seeking to restore the conviction and sentence imposed by the Kuala Lumpur High Court on the former Bersatu Youth chief two years ago.
On June 25 this year, the Court of Appeal unanimously acquitted Syed Saddiq of abetment to criminal breach of trust (CBT), misappropriation of property and money laundering of RM1.12 million belonging to Bersatu Youth.
The appeals court went on to quash the former Cabinet minister’s sentence of seven years’ imprisonment, two strokes of the cane and a RM10 million fine imposed by the Kuala Lumpur High Court in 2023.
Justice Noorin Badaruddin, who delivered the verdict, said the trial judge had failed to appreciate Syed Saddiq’s defence and had wrongly treated it as a bare denial and an afterthought.
Submitting on the abetment charge, Wan Shaharuddin said Syed Saddiq had ordered then Bersatu Youth assistant treasurer Rafiq Hakim Razali to withdraw RM1 million from the youth wing’s bank account.
He said the Muar MP had claimed that the funds had been raised through his own hard work.
“He was the mastermind who forced the withdrawal,” the prosecutor said, adding that the Court of Appeal had misdirected itself on the evidence.
He said two prosecution witnesses — then Bersatu Youth assistant secretary Ahmad Redzuan Shafi and Rafiq — had testified that they were ordered to perform the withdrawal during a meeting at Syed Saddiq’s home in early March 2020.
The order came after the Sheraton Move and the fall of the Pakatan Harapan government in February 2020, he added.
Wan Shaharuddin submitted that the Court of Appeal was wrong to rely on Bersatu Youth information chief Ulya Aqamah Husamuddin’s claim that Syed Saddiq had not instructed the withdrawal.
“We have shown that he lied in his testimony during cross-examination,” he said, adding that Ulya’s statement to the investigators from the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission conflicted with his evidence in court.
He also said Ulya “failed miserably” to support the testimony of Syed Saddiq on the abetment charge during the defence case.
DPP Ahmad Akram Gharib, submitting on the misappropriation charge, argued that the Court of Appeal had misconstrued it as a case of conversion.
“This is a grave misdirection and warrants appellate intervention. The bench cannot rewrite the charge and change the law,” he added.
Akram said Syed Saddiq had no right to transfer RM100,000 into his personal account from the sum of RM120,000 raised at his 2018 election campaign in Muar.
“The money was a public donation, but he dishonestly transferred it into his account,” he added.
DPP Farah Ezlin Yusop Khan argued that the two money laundering charges were capable of standing independently, without reliance on the predicate offences of CBT abetment and dishonest misappropriation.
Syed Saddiq’s lead counsel Hisyam Teh Poh Teik, will make his rebuttal submission tomorrow.