CHILL and let cool head prevails.
Perhaps after almost a week of venting out strong remarks over sales promoter/clerk Sam Ke Ting’s six-year imprisonment and RM6,000 fine in default a six-year jail term, it’s time to respect the 27 year-old’s wish not to make her case a public debate – and especially so to blame her conviction on the judiciary.
“She expressed her disappointment when the public blamed the judiciary system,” Sam’s lead defence counsel Muhammad Faizal Mokhtar told the media at the Court of Appeal in Putrajaya yesterday (April 18). “When she lost (the prosecution’s appeal at the High Court), people said the judiciary system is broken and such.”
Yesterday, the Court of Appeal released Sam with a RM10,000 bail with one surety as well as granting the stay of execution and leave for application for appeal.
The multi-ethnic bench led by Judge Datuk P. Ravindran along with Datuk Lee Heng Cheong and Datuk Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali – will later set a hearing date to hear the merits of her appeal.
On April 13, she was convicted for reckless driving which resulted in the deaths of eight teenagers aged 13-16 on “basikal lajak” (modified bicycles with no brakes) along Jalan Lingkaran Dalam, Johor Bahru at 3.20am on Feb 18, 2017. Sam was only 22 during time of the accident.
Muhammad Faizal further said Sam’s case should not be seen through racial lens but rather as a universal issue of life and freedom.
“The issue that Sam has understood here is the value of life which has collided with her freedom,” explained the lawyer who has stuck with Sam through thick and thin when the magistrate’s court acquitted and discharged her on two occasions on Oct 28, 2019 and Oct 10 last year.
In fact, Muhammad Faizal said Sam was aware and prepared for the appellate court to reject her application, leaving her with no other avenue to appeal her case and be forced to serve out her sentence.
Sam has also posed six questions of law to be determined at the full hearing later – the first and most crucial of which being whether her unsworn statement from the dock during her defence trial can be accepted as an explanation in her defence.
Muhammad Faizal said his next course of action would be to file a notice of appeal to the Johor Bahru High Court and judge Datuk Abu Bakar Katar within 14 days for the judge to produce and submit his full grounds of judgment in Sam’s conviction.
Asked how Sam had been coping after spending the past week in jail, he said the prison authorities had treated his client well and that she was thankful for it.
In fact, prior to her appeal yesterday, Sam’s family had also come forward to urge all parties not to turn the case into a racial and political issue following the High Court’s decision to reverse her acquittal of the reckless driving charge.
Andrew Cheah, founder of charitable organisation Sunflower Charity-KL, conveyed the family’s message after visiting the family on April 14. Cheah told Sin Chew Daily despite worrying for Sam, the family reiterated that it did not raise funds nor seek public donations over the matter.
“Sam’s family is having discussions among the family members whether to enhance legal representation for her. I am not in the position to disclose other details,” said Cheah, noting that the family wanted to focus on handling Sam’s court case and did not wish the case to become more complicated with intervention from political parties and the media.
Cheah visited Sam’s mother after the latter contacted him on April 13, the day Sam was convicted by the Johor Bahru High Court. – April 19, 2022
Photo credit: The Vibes
