The appeal of Hulu Kelang state assemblyman Mohd Azmin Ali's appeal against a perjury conviction had to be postponed for the second time as documents related to the case, discovered missing two months ago, could not be located.

Azmin told malaysiakini that the Kuala Lumpur High Court cancelled the hearing of the appeal, scheduled for this morning, as the missing documents attached to the appeal's record have yet to be found.

"A court official informed my lawyer yesterday afternoon that the documents are still missing and asked if we want to proceed. Of course we want to proceed but we cannot do so until the documents are found," he said.

Describing the situation as "funny", Azmin said "I can only hope for the best now and wait to see where this is leading to."

When the case was last mentioned on June 16, Azmin's lawyer C V Prabhakaran alerted the court that the records of appeal provided to the counsel was incomplete. One of the exhibits - Azmin's letter to the police - was missing.

Guidance for appeal

Deputy Public Prosecutor K Muniandy also informed that several other documents including the sessions court judge's grounds of judgment and written submissions submitted by counsel to the sessions court were also not in the records.

The records of appeal are prepared by the court and given to counsel as guidance for the appeal. These contain detailed notes of proceedings and all documents and exhibits tendered during the trial.

Azmin, the former private secretary of jailed ex-deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim, is appealing against sessions court judge Akhtar Tahir's decision of May 2, 2001, who found him guilty of giving false evidence.

Akhtar said he was satisfied that Azmin committed the offence while testifying as a defence witness in Anwar's corruption trial at the High Court in March 1999. He sentenced Azmin to 18 months' jail.

Azmin, who stands to lose his seat if he fails to set aside the jail term, was initially acquitted from the charge in July 1999 when sessions judge Hamdan Indah found that there was nothing in the prosecution's case that warranted him to enter his defence.

However, the prosecution appealed against the acquittal. On Feb 17, 2000, the appeal was allowed by High Court judge Abdul Wahab Patail, who ordered the case to be remitted back to the Sessions Court for Azmin to enter his defence.

This led to Azmin's conviction and sentence, against which he is now appealing.