Sabah court strikes out Albert's contempt bid against Hajiji

The Sabah Sessions Court has dismissed Albert Tei’s contempt application against caretaker chief minister Hajiji Noor.

Tei (above) filed his application to cite Hajiji for contempt after he was turned away upon arrival at Kota Kinabalu International Airport (KKIA) for the second time on Oct 23, a day before he was scheduled to appear in court for his criminal case.

In a statement today, Soh said the court ruled that the application was fundamentally flawed, as contempt proceedings under Order 52 apply only to civil matters, not criminal cases.

"In opposing the application based on a preliminary objection, we had submitted that O52 of the Rules of Court (ROC) 2012 only governs civil proceedings and not criminal matters based on Order 1 Rule 2 (2) of the ROC 2012.

"Therefore, the application was unsustainable because Tei’s reliance on O52 ROC 2012 was misconceived and bad in law.

"Furthermore, under Article 145 (3) of the Federal Constitution and section 376 of the Criminal Procedure Code, it is the Federal Attorney-General represented by the deputy public prosecutor (DPP) who has the ‘control and direction of all criminal prosecutions and proceedings’.

"Therefore, Tei, as an accused person in the criminal proceedings before another court, is not the proper applicant to commence contempt proceedings in a different court, as that role belongs to the deputy public prosecutor in the criminal proceedings," Soh added.

He said after hearing the arguments, the court ruled in favour of Hajiji based on the preliminary objection and dismissed Tei’s application.

Sabah Immigration director Sh Sitti Saleha Habib Yussof said in October that immigration officers had stopped Tei as he had an active “Sabah Alert Notice” issued by the state government, and he was only allowed in if he was required to go to court.

She also claimed that Tei did not inform the officers in KKIA that he had a court case, but instead stated that he wanted to enter the state for sightseeing and meeting friends, which Tei’s lawyer, Mahajoth Singh, had since refuted.

Tei was also stopped from entering the state on Sept 22, purportedly because of a restriction from the Chief Minister’s Office. However, the matter was resolved after the immigration officer on duty at the airport gave Tei a conditional approval to enter the state for two days to attend his court hearing.

At that time, Tei was facing two corruption charges at the Kota Kinabalu Court, where he was accused of offering bribes to incumbent Tanjung Batu assemblyperson Andi Suryady Bandy and incumbent Sindumin assemblyperson Yusof Yacob.

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