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KUALA LUMPUR: A businessman, who was arrested for alleged illegal gambling, has been placed in pre-trial detention for the second time under the Crime Prevention Act (Poca) after the first 21 days expired last Friday.
Lead federal attorney Muhammad Sinthi, who acted for the Interior Ministry, told the High Court today that the police had obtained an additional 38 days of pretrial detention for businessman Goh Leong Yeong under Poca.
The lawyer said he was using this new order to raise a preliminary objection to Goh’s petition for habeas corpus to challenge the first arrest.
“Therefore, your request to challenge the 21-day detention now becomes academic. We are raising this as our preliminary objection, ”he said.
Goh was arrested on October 27 in Pahang and detained under Poca. Goh was reported to have fled the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) building in Putrajaya after being released on October 11, after hearing that the police were waiting to re-arrest him.
Goh’s attorney, Gopal Sri Ram, said that his client maintained that the arrest was invalid, claiming that any warrant issued under Section 4 (1) (a) of Poca is considered void.
However, High Court Judicial Commissioner Azhar Abdul Hamid accepted the government’s preliminary objection and rejected Goh’s habeas corpus offer.
Goh was not present in court for today’s hearing.
He tried to challenge his 21-day detention for an investigation into illegal gambling, claiming that the detention was invalid.
Goh said that Section 4 (1) (a) violated Article 121 of the Federal Constitution, as Parliament had eliminated any discretion granted to the magistrate when suspects were presented for remand.
He further said that his detention was also beyond Poca’s reach and that the pretrial detention law was not applicable to him.
