Mohd Yahya Mat, who served as an aide to former Selangor menteri besar Abdul Khalid Ibrahim, failed to overturn his conviction despite using Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak's RM2.6 billion donation issue as one of the grounds to seek his acquittal.

In a unanimous decision today, the three-member Court of Appeal bench said it was upholding the decision of the Shah Alam High Court made last year.

"This is not a case about political donation, it is about cheating," the court's decision reads.

As such, Mohd Yahya was convicted on his first charge, under Section 420 of the Penal Code, for "cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property".

However, he was acquitted on the second charge, under Section 471 of the Penal Code, for "using as genuine a forged document".

He was sentenced to two years in prison and two strokes of the rotan.

Mohd Yahya was originally convicted in 2013 by the High Court in Shah Alam for cheating the president of Kumpulan Darul Ehsan Bhd, Abdul Karim Munisar, eight years ago.

Mohd Yahya was charged with cheating Abdul Karim by deceiving him into believing that the Pakatan Rakyat secretariat was seeking sponsors for the party’s 100th day celebration.

Abdul Karim had donated RM50,000 to celebrate 100 days of opposition rule in Selangor and later testified that there was no cheating.

However, in the decision today, it was explained how his testimony was taken into consideration.

"Not feeling cheated and not being cheated are two different things altogether," the court decision states.

'Political donations are all right'

The defence had previously tried to use Najib's RM2.6 billion political donation as grounds for acquittal, arguing that it was stated in Parliament that political donations are all right and those taking them should not be penalised.

Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said in Parliament on Dec 3 last year that as the country followed a democratic system, the practice of accepting political donations by political parties, including the opposition, is allowed.

“In our case involving Mohd Yahya, the former political aide to the Selangor menteri besar, the political donation was obtained to celebrate 100 days of (Pakatan Rakyat) rule in 2008, where the donor was identified, the recipient political party was identified (PKR) and the donor gave it willingly and testified there is no deception and confusion, and the political party prepared audited accounts.

“The money had never been used - not one sen of the money - by my client,” Mohd Yahya's lawyer Manjeet Singh Dhillon said, referring to the RM50,000 donation.

Attorney-general Mohamed Apandi Ali's office has declined to prosecute Najib based on the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) investigations into the RM2.6 billion deposited into the prime ministers personal bank accounts by a Saudi Arabian donor.

The donation, linked to the 1MDB scandal, was subjected to investigation conducted by the MACC, the police, the Public Accounts Committee, Bank Negara and the auditor-general.