Deputy public prosecutor Afzainizam Abdul Aziz said the date was fixed today during an online case management before deputy registrar Khair Haron.

“The parties must file their written submission by Feb 2 and a further case management will be held a week later,” he told FMT.

He said the hearing date was delayed partly because of “material errors” in trial judge Justice Nazlan Mohd Ghazali’s notes of evidence and this had been corrected and clarified by both the appellant (Isa) and respondent (public prosecutor).

Isa, represented by Sallehudin Saidin, filed his petition of appeal and listed out where Nazlan had erred in facts and law soon after the 400-page judgment was released in August last year.

Nazlan, now a Court of Appeal judge, had sentenced Isa to six years’ jail and fined him RM15.4 million on Feb 3, 2021 after finding him guilty on nine counts of corruption involving RM3.09 million in connection with Felda’s purchase of a hotel in Kuching in 2014.

He sentenced Isa to six years’ jail on each of the nine counts, with the sentences to run concurrently.

Nazlan also granted Isa a stay of execution against the prison sentence and fine pending his appeal to the Court of Appeal.

Isa, who was Felda chairman from January 2011 to January 2017, was freed on bail of RM1.5 million.

He was initially slapped with one charge of criminal breach of trust (CBT) and nine counts of corruption over the purchase of the Merdeka Palace Hotel and Suites in Kuching.

At the close of the prosecution’s case, the court acquitted him of the CBT charge and ordered him to defend the corruption charges.

The prosecution has filed an appeal on the CBT charge acquittal.