Court sets June 28 for further case management on Sam Ke Ting’s appeal

The Court of Appeal has fixed June 28 for another case management on clerk Sam Ke Ting’s appeal against her conviction and jail sentence for reckless driving leading to the death of eight teenagers on modified bicycles commonly known as basikal lajak.

The date was fixed after case management before Court of Appeal deputy registrar Mohd Khairi Haron today.

Lawyers Harvinderjit Singh and Faizal Mokhtar who represented Sam attended the case management proceedings while deputy public prosecutor Ng Siew Wee appeared for the prosecution.

When contacted, Harvinderjit said the deputy registrar had set June 28 for further case management to obtain the appeal records and for the appeal records to be served to the parties in the case.

He said he also informed the deputy registrar that former Federal Court judge Gopal Sri Ram had been appointed as lead counsel and he (Harvinderjit) as co-counsel to represent Sam in her appeal.

Harvinderjit said the prosecution meanwhile confirmed receiving the notice of appeal filed by Sam.

He said the defence informed the deputy registrar that they wanted the appeal records, notes of proceedings and submissions of an earlier appeal in 2019 by the prosecution to be included for the hearing in the Court of Appeal.

He said this was because the issue of the prima facie case would also be determined by the Court of Appeal.

“The court has directed for a letter to be written to the Johor Bahru High Court to request the same accordingly,” he said.

The Johor Bahru Magistrate’s Court had on Oct 28, 2019 freed Sam without ordering her to enter her defence for the charge of driving recklessly and causing the death of eight teenagers at Jalan Lingkaran Dalam, Johor Bahru, Johor at 3.20am on Feb 18, 2017.

The eight teenagers killed in the incident were Mohamad Azrie Danish Zulkefli, 14; Muhamad Shahrul Izzwan Azzuraimie, 14; Muhammad Firdauz Danish Mohd Azhar, 16; Fauzan Halmijan, 13; Mohamad Azhar Amir, 16; Muhammad Harith Iskandar Abdullah, 14; Muhammad Shahrul Nizam Marudin, 14 and Haizad Kasrin, 16.

In 2019, High Court judge Shahnaz Sulaiman allowed the prosecution’s appeal and ordered Sam to enter her defence on the reckless driving charge.

Magistrate Siti Hajar Ali, who heard the case in 2019 again discharged and acquitted Sam at the end of the defence case, prompting the prosecution to file a second appeal at the High Court.

On April 13 this year, High Court judge Abu Bakar Katar allowed the prosecution’s appeal and convicted Sam of driving recklessly, sentencing her to six years in jail and fining her RM6,000.

Sam obtained leave from the Court of Appeal on April 18 to appeal against her conviction and jail sentence.

The Court of Appeal also allowed Sam’s application to stay the execution of the jail sentence and released her on bail of RM10,000 with one surety pending the hearing of her appeal.