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PETALING JAYA: "This is a courtroom, not a cinema. Please respect the court," a clearly annoyed Sessions Court judge said yesterday midway through [RPK's] trial.
Judge Rozina Ayob complained that members of the public who were seated in the public gallery were distracting her. She expressed her displeasure after spotting someone yawning. "Yawning with your mouth wide open," she said in a raised tone. "Please respect the court. Sit properly." Earlier, she warned a supporter of Raja Petra Kamarudin to sit properly, after noticing him sitting with his arms stretched on the backrest of the bench. This is not the first time Rozina has pulled up members of the public during proceedings. On Oct 7, several supporters of Raja Petra, who were present in court for his sedition trial, were chided by the judge for misbehaving in court. Some were laughing loudly while others clapped when the judge ruled in favour of the defence. One was even caught dozing in the public gallery. Earlier, Rozina turned down an application by the prosecution to produce an amended charge. Rozina rejected the application after hearing arguments from both parties. Deputy public prosecutor Ishak Yusof made an application to add a website address (www.malaysia-today. net/2008/content/view/6604/84/) and title of the article ("Let's send the Altantuya murderers to hell"), to appendix A attached to the charge. (Appendix A is the article with the alleged seditious lines highlighted.) "This was an issue raised by the defence during the last hearing," said Ishak. "We would, therefore, like to produce an amended charge." Raja Petra, 58, is charged with posting a seditious article on his website, Malaysia Today, at www.malaysia-today.net titled "Let's send the Altantuya murderers to hell". The article implicated Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak and his wife Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor in the murder of Altantunya Shaariibuu, a Mongolian woman. The offence was alleged to have been committed at his house at No. 5, Jalan BRP 5/5, Bukit Rahman Putra, Sungai Buloh, on April 25. Counsel Gobind Singh Deo objected to the charge being amended, saying that it was not in accordance with provisions under section 158 of the Criminal Procedure Code. "The section states that the court may alter or add to any charge at any time, before the judgment is delivered. But in our case, it is not an amendment but a substitution," he said, adding that the words of the charge were being changed, especially the title. He argued that the original charge was about a publishing seditious article, as stated in Appendix A. "But today, it is an application to substitute it," he said, adding that the application was prejudicial to the defence case. "From the very beginning, we have taken a consistent stand that the article enclosed in the original charge was not published by the accused. Now, the prosecution makes an attempt to substitute the appendix," said Gobind. "Is this the original or is this another document typed out by a police officer?" He said the attempt by the prosecution to amend the charge showed it had realised that it did not have a case against Raja Petra in respect of the earlier charge. Ishak, however, maintained that it was an amendment and not a substitution as alleged by the defence. "We are merely making an addition to the ingredients of the charge -- adding the website address and the title of the article -- to make it clearer to ensure that Raja Petra understands it," submitted Ishak. Rozina, who stood down the hearing for 10 minutes, accepted the defence's objection and rejected the application. Two new witnesses testified yesterday -- S. Sivanathan, 28, a senior digital forensic analyst from Cyber Security Malaysia and Assistant Superintendent Wa'ie Isqal Kria Abdullah from the Computer Forensic Investigation Unit in Bukit Aman. Sivanathan told the court that Wa'ie gave him a computer forensic report on Nov 4 to interpret and give a second opinion. He also said that an administrator of a website could create a username and password for others to access the website but with less privileges. Wa'ie told the court that he was instructed to find an article titled "Let's send the Altantuya murderers to hell" together with its Internet history. "I analysed the Dell central processing unit and an Asus notebook given to me before I prepared the computer forensic report," he said. Hearing continues. - nst
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