Controversial academician Kassim Ahmad passed away at the Kulim hospital this morning, with his lawyer Rosli Dahlan, who represented the octogenarian in his syariah and judicial review cases, describing him as a great Malaysian.

Rosli said he received a WhatsApp message on the death from Kassim's son Ahmad Syauqi, and also an email from the late academician's daughter in Australia calling for him to go all out to seek justice for her father.

The lawyer said Kassim's health deteriorated following the court battle that he had to face in the Syariah Court, and also in the civil court, after the Federal Court dismissed the appeal by the Federal Territory Islamic Department (Jawi) and ruled that Kassim’s arrest and charges were not proper.

“Despite this, when he was in the Syariah Court, the prosecution did not want to withdraw the charge against him because it said it did not have a chief prosecutor who can decide on this. Where is the compassion, as stated in Islam, in the religious department, bearing in mind there is the Federal Court decision?” Rosli said.

“It was only after I submitted before the Syariah High Court judge, that the court decided to drop the prosecution on Kassim, a couple of months ago,” he added.

Rosli said Kassim had confided in him that he was dejected (kecewa) with all the “muslihat” (trickery) that Jawi was doing to prolong the case.

Kassim was charged in the Syariah High Court in Putrajaya in 2014 with three counts of deriding Islam and a charge of breaching a fatwa in a talk he gave in Putrajaya three years ago.

Following the talk, Kassim was arrested by Jawi at his house in Kulim, Kedah, taken to Penang and escorted on a flight to KLIA in Sepang, Selangor, where he was detained for more than 24 hours without legal representation...