PUTRAJAYA – There is no direct nor strong evidence that could link an ex-pathologist and two others accused of the murder of deputy public prosecutor Datuk Anthony Kevin Morais, lawyers submitted at the Court of Appeal today.
Datuk N. Sivananthan, who appeared for the first out of six accused, Colonel Dr R. Kunaseegaran, said that the charge against Kunaseegaran has been defective ab initio (from the start).
This, he said, is because Kunaseegaran was never present in any event prior to Kevin Morais’ death or murder.
“The first accused (Kunaseegaran) was charged with having a common intention to commit murder with the other accused, whereby the latter were charged with the same offence, among themselves.
“There is nothing to show a prior meeting of the minds between Kunaseegaran and any of the other accused persons including G. Gunasekaran (54th prosecution witness),” he said.
Gunasekaran’s name was heavily mentioned during Sivananthan’s submissions as the former was also one out of the initial seven individuals, including Kunaseegaran, who was charged with Morais’ murder on September 28, 2015.
The other individuals charged for Morais’ murder together with Kunaseegaran and Gunasekaran are S.Ravi Chandaran, R. Dinishwaran, A.K. Thinesh Kumar, M. Vishwanath and S. Nimalan.
However, Gunasekaran changed his plea on the 36th day of the murder trial in December 2016, where he pleaded guilty to disposing of the deceased’s body.
Subsequently, he was acquitted of the murder charge, but charged for the offence he committed under Section 201 of the Penal Code. He then was sentenced to jail for two years.
However, he was also called to testify as the 54th prosecution witness.
During Sivananthan’s submission today, he said that the high court judge Datuk Azman Abdullah (now Court of Appeal judge) erred when convicting and sentencing Kunaseegaran in 2020, as he failed to undertake a maximum evaluation of evidence adduced.
“If he had rightly done so, he would have found the evidence against the 54th prosecution witness pertaining to Kunaseegaran to be incredible and unreliable.
“He (Azman) would have concluded that the evidence adduced against the first accused is nothing more than a mere theory for motive, as there is neither evidence linking him to the crime nor evidence proving common intention between him and (among) other accused,” he said.
He was submitting to an appellate court panel of three justices led by Datuk Hadhariah Syed Ismail, Datuk Ahmad Zaidi Ibrahim and Datuk Azmi Ariffin.
Afterwards, lawyer M. Manoharan appeared for Dinishwaran, who is the second accused out of six convicted in this case.
“Who killed Kevin? Definitely not the second accused (Dinishwaran), as the evidence adduced in the trial notes shows that he is not involved at all.
“The accused had (only) known the first accused (Kunaseegaran) when they met in prison. And there is neither major nor minor evidence linking Dinishwaran’s involvement in this murder.
“There’s also nothing that could show the second accused’s contribution to any participation in killing the deputy public prosecutor. Moreover, there is no evidence to show Dinishwaran’s direct involvement in the murder,” he said.
Meanwhile, Amer Hamzah Arshad who appeared for Nimalan, another accused, also joined the chorus in saying that there is no evidence linking his client to killing Morais as his only involvement was only his knowledge of the drum barrel filled with cement.
“Nimalan’s act of showing the location of the drum thrown into the swamp only proved that he (only) knew about the drum. It cannot be said that he knew the barrel contained Kevin’s body.
“Even during the trial, when he was re-examined by the prosecution, the accused (Nimalan) corrected his statement that the location shown were referring to the drum barrel, and not Kevin’s body,” he said.
The court then adjourned its hearing for today and will continue on December 7.
Morais, 55, was reported missing on September 4, 2015, when he was last seen leaving his apartment in a Proton Perdana. His body was then found in a drum barrel filled with cement at a location in Subang Jaya, on September 16 of the same year. – December 4, 2023
