Eusoffe Abdoolcader FJ:

The tragic events that transpired in the early hours of the morning of 14 April 1982 at Gemencheh in the State of Negeri Sembilan and the resultant death of Dato Mohd. Taha bin Talib, the former Speaker of the State Legislative Assembly, although perhaps not as startling or as dramatic as the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, generated waves in the country, culminating as they did in these proceedings, with this in turn unfolding, in the course of a trial over a span of some 76 days, a grim and gruesome tale of political intrigue, sorcery, conspiracy and murder involving a Minister of the Crown in office at the material times. The effect of all this was like a scandal in a monastery. And so a chain of events in a small town bore within it the seed of much bigger things.

The sequel to this unfortunate and deplorable occurrence was that Dato Mokhtar bin Hashim and Rahmat bin Satiman, the 1st and 2nd appellants in these consolidated appeals, Mohd. Nordin bin Johan, Aziz bin Tumpuk and Aziz bin Abdullah were jointly charged that they on 14 April 1982 at or about 1.30 a.m. at Kampong Seri Asahan, Gemencheh, in the District of Tampin, in the State of Negeri Sembilan, in furtherance of their common intention, did commit murder by causing the death of Dato Taha (`the deceased'), and that they had thereby committed an offence punishable under s. 302 read with s. 34 of the Penal Code.

The case was classified as a security case under the Essential (Security Cases) Regulations 1975 (`the Regulations') by virtue of a certificate issued by the Attorney General under the provisions of reg. 2(2) thereof. Aziz bin Tumpuk died before the commencement of the trial and the case proceeded against the other four before Hashim bin Yeop Abdullah Sani, FJ, sitting in the High Court at Kuala Lumpur, and at the end of the case for prosecution, the learned Judge, applying the principle enunciated by this Court in PP v. Sihabduin bin Salleh & Anor. [1980] 2 MLJ 273 that the Court is not obliged under the Regulations to call on an accused to enter on his defence unless the prosecution has at that stage proved a prima facie case against him, acquitted Mohd. Nordin bin Johan and Aziz bin Abdullah but called on the appellants for their defence, and at the conclusion of the case for the defence convicted the appellants on the charge preferred and sentenced them to death. We should perhaps mention that the Public Prosecutor appealed against the acquittal of the other two accused but we dismissed his appeal (Federal Court Criminal Appeal No. 2 of 1983) on 9 June 1983.

The appellants now appeal against their conviction and sentence. We heard these joint appeals for some eleven days and at the conclusion of argument a month ago today reserved judgment. Et sic ad judicium (and so to judgment). We will in the course of this judgment be referring to several authorities not cited here or in the Court below but which appear to us to be pertinent to the contentions raised as the principles enunciated therein are well established and incontrovertible. We must nevertheless express our appreciation to Counsel on both sides for the careful arguments presented before us.

It is not necessary to preface this judgment with the facts and recount a summary of the evidence save to say that the deceased was found dead from bullet wounds outside his house in Gemencheh in the early morning on 14 April 1982, as we will have to refer to and consider the evidence pertinent to the grounds of appeal raised before us, and now proceed to discuss the several grounds of complaint in respect of the learned Judge's judgment in casu.

Mr. Jagjit Singh for the 1st appellant takes as his first point the failure of the learned Judge to consider the preliminary objection he raised at the inception of the trial and renewed subsequently that this was not a security case but one of law and order, that in the circumstances the Attorney General could not and should not hav