The High Court will be hearing a challenge by Haziq Abdullah Abdul Aziz and four others detained together with him against their six-day detention for police investigation into a high-profile sex video scandal, his lawyer has confirmed.
Sivahnanthan Ragava, who is one of Haziq’s lawyers, confirmed that all five will have their challenge against the magistrate’s court’s remand order heard tomorrow.
“We have filed a revision under Section 323 of the Criminal Procedure Code to challenge the legality of the remand.
“The remand proceedings, if you are dissatisfied with the procedure or legality of the remand, we cannot appeal, but we can ask for revision,” he told Malay Mail.
He explained that the possible outcomes for a typical revision application to challenge a remand could include a maintaining of the remand order, a shortening of the remand with immediate release or even a quashing of a remand order for being illegal.
High Court judge Collin Lawrence Sequerah is scheduled to hear the challenge tomorrow morning at the Kuala Lumpur court complex.
Lawyer Ramesh Sivakumar is leading the defence team for Haziq and the four others, with the other lawyers on the team being Sivahnanthan, Vince Tan and Nurul Afiqah.
Sivahnanthan confirmed that Haziq and five other individuals were arrested on Sunday, before being brought before a Kuala Lumpur magistrate yesterday where the court granted a six-day remand.
Another suspect, who is represented by another legal team, is not challenging the detention period.
Sivahnanthan said the six are being investigated under the Penal Code for allegedly performing sexual intercourse against the order of nature and circulating obscene video.
He said police were also probing them under the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 for improper use of communication network facilities like distribution of pornographic materials.
Sivahnanthan said Haziq had given statements to police on three occasions in the past.
“He has given his utmost cooperation to investigators and there is no reason to further detain him,” he said.
Inspector-General of Police Hamid Bador said on Sunday that the police had identified those behind the distribution of the clips.
He said several of them had been arrested and released although he did not know how many had been nabbed.
He also said the police were narrowing down the suspects who had distributed the clips on social media.
“There are a few more things that need to be done, based on the instructions of the prosecutor. The Attorney-General’s Chambers wants us to record more statements,” he said, adding that police needed to go back and forth to Sandakan, which would take time.
The Malaysian Insight reported that according to the court list when the application for remand was filed, the other five suspects are S Moorthy, V Thirukumar, S Jeevand, P Arwin and Noorhasmawi Mohamad Noor.