The Shah Alam Syariah court has granted an ex-parte application for the Selangor Islamic Department (Jais) to take the remains of Rayappan Anthony and provide him a Muslim burial.

According to the lawyer representing the deceased's family, A Sivanesan, the matter was made known to him by Jais officers late this afternoon.

However, Sivanesan has appealed to Hospital Kuala Lumpur not to release the body until the case is heard by the civil court.

Anthony, 71, died of diabetes on Wednesday. Upon Jais' intervention, the family was not allowed to claim the body.

He was married to a Muslim in 1990 but renounced his religion through a Deed Poll in 1996 and successfully reverted to his birth name through the National Registration Department (NRD).

Legal battle looming

At a press conference in Kuala Lumpur earlier today, Sivanesan said he would be filing a court order to claim the body on Monday.

"The family have decided that they will claim the body at any cost," he said.

The crux of the family's argument is that Anthony had lived the last six years of his life as a Catholic and had been baptised.

Other than the Deed Poll which showed the change of name and the MyKad which does not indicate the deceased as a Muslim, Sivanesan also showed reporters the deceased's temporary identification document issued by the NRD which explicitly states that he was a Christian.

"The burden of proof is now on Jais to prove that he is not a Christian... the MyKad and NRD documents are prima facie evidence of his religious status," said another lawyer M Manoharan, who was also at the press conference.

Who's jurisdiction?

He said since Anthony had already embraced Christianity, the Syariah courts and Jais have no jurisdiction over the deceased's remains as any dispute should be solved at the civil courts.

"Based on common sense, the immediate family is the rightful person to claim the body and not a third party," he added.

Yesterday, Jais officers showed Sivanesan a certification card issued in 2005, which claimed that the deceased had embraced Islam.

By then however, Sivanesan argued, that the deceased was already a practising Catholic for five years. He claimed that the deceased was never given the certification card.

Last December, a similar case made headlines when the religious department and family of deceased commando M Moorthy tussled over the rights to his body.

The Kuala Lumpur High Court then ruled that it had no jurisdiction to review the syariah court decision.