Published: Tuesday August 25, 2009 MYT 12:26:00 PM
Updated: Tuesday August 25, 2009 MYT 5:07:37 PM
Kartika can still appeal, says PM (Update)
By MAZWIN NIK ANIS and LESTER KONG
PUTRAJAYA: Model Kartika Sari Dewi Shukarno can still appeal against the Pahang Syariah Court decision to cane her for consuming alcohol, said Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak.
He said she should not merely resign herself to the fact that such a sentence had been meted out on her and that there was still an avenue for her to appeal against the court decision.
He said the authorities were always willing to consider such an appeal.
“I feel that she (Kartika) should not be too quick in (redha) accepting the fact that she has been punished. Actually there is still avenue for her to appeal her case.
“The authority concerned is always sensitive and considerate,” he told reporters after chairing the National Finance Council on Tuesday.
On July 20, the Pahang Syariah High Court had fined Kartika RM5,000 and ordered her to be given six strokes of the rotan after she pleaded guilty to drinking beer at a hotel lounge in Cherating last year.
The 32-year-old part time model was scheduled to be caned on Monday but religious authorities, who fetched her from her parents house in Sungai Siput in Perak to go to Kajang prison for the sentence to be executed, literally made a U-turn and released her, citing that it was not advisable to mete out the sentence now as it was fasting month.
The Pahang Religious Affairs committee chairman Datuk Mohd Sahfri Abdul Aziz had said that the sentence on Kartika remained and that she would be caned after the fasting month.
However, Kartika had always declined to be caned insisting that she was willing to be whipped as she knew the law prohibited Muslims from consuming alcohol. As such she was determined take the punishment.
Her case made international headlines and into most blog charts.
Later, Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein said the ministry needed to look into the proper methods to carry out the caning sentence on Kartika.
He said he had instructed the ministry secretary-general Datuk Seri Mahmood Adam to discuss the methods to be used by the prison authorities with the Islamic Religious Development Department of Malaysia , the Syariah courts and other experts in the field.
He said that it did not have the expertise to carry out the sentence.
"No way will I allow the sentence to be carried out if we do not have the expertise, skills and knowledge to carry out the sentence according to Syariah law. These need to discussed with the relevant authorities," he told reporters at the Ministry here.
He sdded that this was not a normal sentence involving caning as the sentence on Kartika was related to Syariah provisions.
"At the moment, as far as I'm concerned, we are not ready because our officers have not had to face this kind of situation," Hishammuddin said.
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