Migrant labour rights activist Irene Fernandez will now have to wait until Sept 25 for her appeal to be heard - the third such postponement.

The Kuala Lumpur High Court decided this morning that it needs more time to catalogue and correlate documents that had gone missing earlier, and were subsequently retrieved.

irene fernandez trial 100908 03 "The records are ready - there are four volumes but it needs to be indexed and paginated," said Fernandez's counsel M Moganambal after meeting Justice Mohamad Apandi Ali in chambers today.

"They have requested for two more weeks - the materials also have to be consistent with the handwritten notes (of former magistrate Juliana Mohamed)," she added.

On the first mention date on June 11, the case was moved to Aug 5 because documents pertaining to statements of key prosecution witnesses had gone missing .

The second postponement was due to a computer virus that wiped out a specific volume of notes required for the hearing.

Moganambal also confirmed that the trial dates have not been changed and retained on Oct 28-30 and Nov 24-28.

Fernandez's five year epic battle of appeal since 2003, against her imprisonment came to a standstill in April when some 1,700 pages of trial records went missing .

At the time, her lawyer M Puravalen claimed that documents encompassing statements from five key prosecution witnesses and all 21 defence witnesses were missing from the trial records. He described the circumstances as "grave and frightening."

'At least this time everything is in order'

Fernandez remained calm upon being informed about the postponement. Met later, she said: "At least this time everything (document) is there."

Fernandez, who is Tenaganita executive director, had publicised a memorandum entitled 'Abuse, Torture and Dehumanised Conditions of Migrant workers in Detention Centres' in 1995.

She was later accused of publishing malicious false news as the memorandum entailed allegations of shoddy conditions in immigration detention centres.

Fernandez was then arrested and charged a year later under Section 8A (1) of the Printing Presses and Publications Act 1984. This became the longest-running trial in Malaysian history.

The maximum penalty under the Act, is three years' imprisonment or a fine not exceeding RM20,000, or both.

Eight years later, in 2003, Fernandez was sentenced to a 12-month jail term after being found guilty of maliciously publishing false information but was allowed bail pending appeal.