SHAH ALAM: Mohd Ezra Mohd Zaid finally walked out of the courtroom a free man today after the Syariah lower court released him from a charge of publishing a controversial book.
He had been fighting the case over the past eight years since the book was published by his company in 2012.
Syarie judge Shukran Yusof acquitted and discharged Ezra from the charge of publishing 180 copies of the book written by Canadian Irshad Manji.
The book - "Allah, Love and Liberty", was deemed to be against Islamic law.
The 37-year old publisher was in 2013 charged with the offence under Section 16(1)(a) of the Syariah Criminal Offences (Selangor) Enactment 1995.
The Syariah prosecution had last week applied for three orders, which were for a discharge not amounting to an acquittal (DNAA) on Ezra, for the books to not be returned to Ezra and ZI Publications Sdn Bhd but to be disposed of and to prohibit him from talking about his case publicly.
Shukran rejected the prosecution's application to discharge Ezra conditionally and granted a full acquittal instead.
"This case is not valid from the moment of his (Ezra) arrest and the decision to prosecute him by the fourth respondent (Selangor chief Syarie prosecutor) was quashed by the Court of Appeal and any appeal to the Federal Court was disallowed," he said ordering for Ezra's RM1,000 bail money to be returned.
However, the judge allowed one of the orders sought by the prosecution for the books seized to be forfeited and destroyed or for it to be handed over to the religious enforcement authorities for further action.
He also dismissed the application to block the accused or any of his agents to discuss or talk about the case in any way.
Ezra when met after the proceeding said he was happy that the case was finally concluded.
Syarie prosecutor Zamniazura Mohd Sarin appeared for the prosecution while lawyer Zulkifli Che Yong represented Ezra.
On May 29, 2012, the Selangor Religious Department (Jais) had conducted a raid at the ZI Publications' office in Merchant Square, Petaling Jaya and seized 180 copies of the book.
Ezra was arrested during the raid.
On the same day, the Home Ministry gazetted a prohibition order on both the original English version and Bahasa Malaysia translation of the book.
On March 7, 2013, he was charged in his capacity as ZI Publications director and major shareholder for publishing, distributing and possession of the said books.
ZI Publication and Ezra had filed an application for judicial review challenging the raid carried by Jais naming the department, its director-general, the state religious enforcement chief officer, the state syarie chief prosecutor, the state government and the Federal Government as the respondents.
In the application, they had sought an order to quash Jais' raid, seizure and arrest, as well as an order compelling the religious department to return the 180 copies.
The High Court had on March 7, 2018, dismissed the judicial review application.
He then filed an appeal against the dismissal and on Sept 25, 2019, the Court of Appeal allowed his bid to quash the decision to prosecute him over the books.
On Sept 29, this year, the Federal Court dismissed Jais' leave application to appeal the Court of Appeal's decision that favoured Ezra and ZI Publications.
