Raja Petra Kamarudin is a free man now as the Federal Court today struck out the Home Ministry's appeal against a High

Court decision in releasing the blogger from a two-year detention under the Internal Security Act (ISA), two years ago.

The unanimous decision was made by a three-men panel chaired by chief judge of Malaya Arifin Zakaria who was of the view that the issues in which the Home Ministry wanted the court to determine was academic because the detention order issued on Raja Petra had lapsed.

Two other judges on the panel were Federal Court judge James Foong Cheng Yuen and Md Raus Sharif.

On Nov 7, 2008, the Shah Alam High Court ordered the release of Raja Petra from ISA detention after ruling that his two-year detention at the Kamunting detention camp in Taiping was unlawful.

NONE Raja Petra (right) was arrested on Sept 12, 2008 as he was deemed a threat to national security and the order to detain him under the ISA was issued on Sept 22, 2008.

Raja Petra was detained on grounds that he, among others, owned and operated the Malaysia Today website and had intentionally and recklessly published his articles and also readers' comments on Malaysia Today that were critical of and

insulted Muslims, the purity of Islam and the personality of Prophet Muhammad.

He then filed a habeas corpus application seeking for his release and named the home minister as the respondent in his application.

In today's proceedings, deputy public prosecutor Tun Abdul Majid Tun Hamzah informed the panel that it was its stand not to withdraw the appeal although the detention order had lapsed.

He also said the prosecution could not serve the notice of appeal to Raja Petra who was absent in court today since he was believed to be abroad.

However, he said he was also aware that Raja Petra must be present in the appeal proceeding by virtue of Section 314 of Criminal Procedure Code.

Raja Petra's counsel Malik Imtiaz Sarwar asked the court to strike out the appeal on grounds that the appeal had become academic because the minister's order to detain him for two years had already expired.

- Bernama