KOTA KINABALU: The Federal Government has appealed against the decision by the High Court here to order the declassification of the investigation report on the “Double Six” plane crash that killed 11 people including former Sabah chief minister Tun Fuad Stephens.
Acting for the Chief Secretary, Transport Minister and the Malaysian government, the Attorney General’s Chambers filed the appeal on March 10.
The appellants were seeking to overturn the ruling by High Court judge Justice Christopher Chin Soo Yin on March 8 at the Court of Appeal.
Justice Chin had delivered a mandamus order during the ruling of a judicial review filed by Tan Sri Harris Mohd Salleh, who succeeded Fuad as chief minister after his death, to declassify the report.
This was to make public the investigation report by Malaysian authorities into the crash of an Australian-made Nomad aircraft 9M-ATZ crash in Kota Kinabalu.
In his ruling, Justice Chin also ordered the Chief Secretary, Transport Minister as well as the Malaysian government to act necessarily to declassify the report in three months’ time or by June 8 this year.
In his order, the judge also directed the government to ensure the Australian government acted accordingly to enable the report to be made public promptly should such declassification require any related action by the latter.
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The investigation report on the "Double Six" plane crash, which was one of the darkest moments in Sabah’s history, has been kept under wraps for the last 47 years.
The Australian government had not released the cause of the Nomad aircraft crash report on the request of the Malaysian government previously.
Fuad and state ministers Datuk Salleh Sulong, Datuk Peter Mojuntin and Chong Thien Vun died in the ill-fated flight on June 6, 1976.
They were on a flight from Labuan when the aircraft crashed in Sembulan here while approaching the Kota Kinabalu International Airport.
Among others who perished were state assistant minister Darius Binion, Sabah Finance Ministry permanent secretary Datuk Wahid Peter Andau, Isak Atan (private secretary to Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah who was the Finance Minister then), Kpl Said Mohammad (bodyguard to Fuad), pilot Capt Gandhi Nathan and Fuad’s eldest son Johari Stephens.
