Kuala Lumpur High Court judge Mohamad Apandi Ali has fixed June 11 to hear counsel submissions on whether a criminal case can go on since evidence and testimonies have gone missing in the Irene Fernandez case.

He revealed that three prosecution witnesses' statements and one exhibit are missing based on a report by one of his legal officers.

"The court is concerned with the disappearance of the proceeding notes. I have directed the officer who did the report to lodge a police report," he told the court.

Dubbed ‘the longest trial in Malaysian history', migrant worker activist Fernandez's appeal against her 2003 imprisonment conviction has been riddled with postponements.

In 1995, the Tenaganita director had written an exposé of conditions in immigration detention centres, in a memorandum entitled ‘Abuse, Torture and Dehumanised Conditions of Migrant workers in Detention Centres'.

She was arrested and charged under Section 8A(1) of the Printing Presses and Publications Act 1984. The maximum penalty is imprisonment is three years' imprisonment or a fine not exceeding RM20,000, or both.

Fernandez, who filed an appeal against the sentence, is on bail and her passport has been surrendered to the court.

Justice Apandi also directed her lawyer M Puravalen and DPP Shamsul Sulaiman to perform a thorough research on whether an appeal of a criminal case that was reliant on evidence can go on without the missing evidence.

"This doesn't happen all the time. Only once in a blue moon. I hope you will do a thorough research on the nett legal effect of this circumstance," he said.

[Full report to follow]