KUALA LUMPUR, March 16 — The Terengganu Election Court today issued an arrest warrant for its state executive councillor Mohd Nor Hamzah, reportedly for not turning up to continue his testimony as a witness in an election petition case.

The court had two days ago ordered Mohd Nor to appear in court again today, but the Bukit Payung state assemblyman did not turn up today, Harian Metro reported this afternoon.

The election petition case involves Umno candidate Jasmira Othman’s bid to challenge the 15th general election results for the Marang parliamentary seat, which PAS president Tan Sri Abdul Hadi Awang has held for decades and successfully retained last November.

Jasmira’s lawyer Muhammad Amin Othman applied to the court to issue the arrest for Mohd Nor after the latter failed to turn up inside the courtroom.

High Court judge Datuk Hassan Abdul Ghani, who was sitting as an election judge, then gave the order for the arrest warrant, Harian Metro reported.

The hearing for the election petition will now resume on March 19.

On January 3, Terengganu Umno had filed the election petition and sought to have the GE15 results for the Marang seat nullified.

Terengganu Umno chief Datuk Seri Ahmad Said was previously reported saying that the petition includes allegations of bribing of voters through the Terengganu state government’s distribution of financial aid through the i-Pension, i-Belia and i-Student initiatives between November 15 and 17.

Polling day for GE15 was on November 19, 2022.

In the four-corner fight in GE15, Hadi won with a 41,729 vote-majority against Jasmira, while the two other candidates from Pakatan Harapan and Parti Pejuang Tanah Air had considerably less votes than the pair.

On February 12 this year, the Election Court dismissed Hadi’s preliminary objection to the election petition on the Marang seat.

The hearing of the election petition was then scheduled for March 6 to March 21.