The police had arrested prominent lawyer P Uthayakumar last September for failing to provide them with a witness statement.

However, the arrest could be nullified by the Kuala Lumpur High Court if his lawyer can establish that his client did not receive a written notice from the police compelling him to do so.

Lawyer M Manoharan told High Court Judge Abdul Kadir Jasin today that his client did nothing wrong by refusing to comply with a purported police officer's phone call to record a statement as a valid written document had not been provided.

The high court had earlier been provided copies of police affidavits, the arrest warrant and two notice letters from the police addressed to Uthayakumar seeking his statement.

The letters, however, did not carry an 'acknowledgement of receipt' stamp from Uthayakumar.

Met after this morning's hearing, Manoharan said the police had no authority to arrest his client for failure to cooperate with them as the notice had not actually been served.

"Furthermore, there have been two affidavits submitted by the police which contradict each other as each officer said he filed the notice separately. Both notices carried no stamp showing that my client actually received it," he added.

He said Uthayakumar had previously received many unrelated notices from the police and those had been submitted in writing and had stamps of acknowledgement as opposed to this particular notice.

'Murder' accusation

Manoharan however admitted that Uthayakumar had received a call - purportedly by the police - asking him to be present at the Brickfields district police headquarters to record a 112 (witness) statement based on provisions in the Criminal Procedure Code.

The statement was in connection with a report lodged by Brickfields police chief Zulhasnan Najib Baharudin against Uthayakumar for accusing the police of murdering police detainee Francis G Udayappan.

The lawyer had also previously accused the police of being party to his assault on May 11, 2004 as he had blown the whistle on them many a times in relation to police abuses.

The police in turn accused the lawyer of committing criminal defamation under Section 500 of the Penal Code when alleging their involvement in that particular case.

Uthayakumar was subsequently arrested on Sept 9 last year, for four hours, when the police claimed he failed to comply with their notice.

In response to his 'unlawful arrest' the lawyer filed a criminal law suit a week later against the police, the attorney-general and the government.

The case has dragged on for close to a year as the prosecution argues that the nature of the case is civil and not criminal.

As for today's development, the prosecution team headed by DPP Mohamad Hanafiah Zakariah requested for an extension to allow them time to prepare their response.

The case continues on Aug 22.