PUTRAJAYA (Aug 14): Muar member of Parliament Syed Saddiq Abdul Rahman was granted access to his passport by the Court of Appeal on Wednesday to enable him to travel to Thailand.

He applied for the temporary release of his passport to attend the Asean Halal Pavilion event organised by Tahira Group in Bangkok this Friday and Saturday.

A three-judge panel comprising Court of Appeal judges Datuk Che Mohd Ruzima Ghazali and Datuk Ahmad Zaidi Ibrahim and High Court judge Datuk Noorin Badaruddin allowed Syed Saddiq’s application after deputy public prosecutor Mohd Afif Ali did not object to it.

Earlier, lawyer Datuk Hisyam Teh Poh Teik said Syed Saddiq was invited to the event by Tahira Group, and that the passport would be returned to the court after his return next Monday.

The lawyer also requested the court to prepare a letter of confirmation for the temporary release of the passport to the Immigration director general to facilitate Syed Saddiq’s travel to Thailand.

In the affidavit to support his application, Syed Saddiq said he is not a flight risk, and that the court had previously released the passport for him to travel abroad, and he had returned the passport to the court upon his return.

On Nov 9 last year, Syed Saddiq was sentenced to seven years in jail, and fined RM10 million and two strokes of the cane by the High Court in Kuala Lumpur, after he was found guilty of four charges of criminal breach of trust, misappropriation of funds and money laundering.

He subsequently filed an appeal to the Court of Appeal on the same day.

Syed Saddiq, 31, who was the youth and sports minister from 2018 to 2020, was charged with abetting former Armada assistant treasurer Rafiq Hakim Razali, who was entrusted with RM1 million of Armada’s funds, to commit criminal breach of trust by misappropriating the funds.

The offence was allegedly committed at CIMB Bank Bhd, Menara CIMB KL Sentral, Jalan Stesen Sentral 2 here on March 6, 2020.

For the second charge, Syed Saddiq was accused of misappropriating RM120,000 from Armada Bumi Bersatu Enterprise’s Maybank Islamic Bhd account by making Rafiq dispose of the money.

Syed Saddiq was also charged with two counts of laundering money via transactions of RM50,000 each, believed to be proceeds from unlawful activities, from his Maybank Islamic Bhd account into his Amanah Saham Bumiputera account at a bank in Jalan Persisiran Perling, Taman Perling, Johor Bahru, on June 16 and 19, 2018.

The High Court had allowed Syed Saddiq’s application for a stay of execution of all sentences pending appeal.

Case management has been set for Sept 20.