00:04The Court of Appeal has allowed celebrity preacher Syed Shah Iqmal Syed Mohammed Shaiful,
00:09also known as Da'i Syed, to stay his 10-year prison sentence and three strokes of the cane
00:14in a rape case. In a unanimous decision on Friday, a three-judge panel led by Justice
00:19Azmi Arifin found special circumstances allowing the appellant to be released on bail-pending
00:24appeal. Justice Azmi said the appellant never failed to attend court proceedings during trial,
00:30poses no-flight risk, has no history of absconding, and is a first-time offender. The court increased
00:35bail to 40,000 ringgit and ordered the appellant to report to the nearest police station each month.
00:41Syed Shah Iqmal's passport would be retained by the High Court, and Justice Azmi said the appellant
00:46could apply to retrieve it should he need to travel. Earlier, his lawyer M. Athimulan submitted to the
00:52Court that it has jurisdiction to exercise its discretion and grant a stay of execution of the
00:57sentence imposed by the Shah Alam Sessions Court when it found the appellant guilty in 2024. He said
01:03the defense has appealable issues to raise during the appeal proper, and that if his client won,
01:08the prison sentence would have an irreversible effect if he were serving it then. When met after
01:14the proceedings, Athimulan said Syed Shah Iqmal has been in prison for 21 days at Kajang Prison since the
01:20High Court upheld his conviction and sentence.
01:22Any breach of the three orders, then the bail will be denied and it will be sent back to the
01:30penjara.
01:31And we are waiting for the appeal proper and we will ventilate our client's rights,
01:37any misdirections which happen in the lower courts. That's our standard.
01:42In December 2020, Syed Shah Iqmal claimed trial at the Sessions Court to a charge of raping a 23-year
01:49-old
01:49woman at a condominium in Shah Alam in September 2019. In August 2024, he was sentenced to 10 years
01:56jail and three strokes of the cane after being found guilty of the offense. The celebrity preacher,
02:01who found fame in a religious reality TV show, was ordered to begin serving the sentence immediately.
02:07He was later released from prison after the Shah Alam High Court granted a stay of execution pending
02:13his appeal to the High Court. Subsequently, the High Court upheld his conviction and sentence,
02:18saying that the lower court did not err in its findings. The High Court also ordered the prison
02:23time to begin immediately. Syed Shah Iqmal then filed an appeal against the decision to immediately
02:28enforce the sentencing.
Comments