PUTRAJAYA – Former Federal Court judge Datuk Seri Gopal Sri Ram will continue to lead the prosecution team in Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s court cases linked to the 1Malaysia Development Bhd scandal.
This follows an unanimous decision by the Court of Appeal’s three-member bench today in dismissing Najib’s appeal to disqualify Sri Ram from appearing as an ad hoc senior deputy public prosecutor in the former prime minister’s 1MDB-related criminal trials.
Justice Datuk Yaacob Md Sam, who led the bench, held that the court is of the view that there is no appealable error committed by the high court judge in dismissing Najib’s application (to disqualify Sri Ram) that warranted appellate intervention.
“We find there is no merit in this appeal. We, therefore, dismiss this appeal. The order of the high court is affirmed,” he said.
Yaacob said Najib’s appeal is against the high court’s decision, which dismissed his application to disqualify Sri Ram, who was appointed senior deputy public prosecutor to lead the prosecution in four criminal cases brought against Najib.
The four 1MDB-linked trials against Najib still pending in the Kuala Lumpur High Court are the 1MDB case, the 1MDB audit tampering case, a criminal breach of trust case involving payments to International Petroleum Investment Company (IPIC) and a money-laundering and power abuse case involving RM2.6 million linked 1MDB.
In delivering the court’s decision, Yaacob said Najib’s complaint was that Sri Ram’s appointment as senior deputy public prosecutor was tainted with elements of interference by the powers of investigation, which could only be carried out by the relevant authorities of four agencies and was not within the power of the public prosecutor to exercise.
He said the other complaint by Najib was that Sri Ram’s appointment was also tainted with elements of bias and conflict of interest, in view of Sri Ram’s visit to the house of former attorney-general Tan Sri Mohamed Apandi Ali and an alleged conversation that had taken place between them.
The other two judges on the bench were Datuk Abu Bakar Jais and Datuk Che Mohd Ruzima Ghazali.
Najib, 68, was appealing against the high court’s decision delivered on February 15 this year in dismissing his application to disqualify Sri Ram from leading the prosecution team in the 1MDB-linked trials.
High Court judge Mohamed Zaini Mazlan, in dismissing the Pekan MP’s application, had said the court found Najib’s allegation that Sri Ram had been involved in the investigation against him unmeritorious.
He held that Najib’s claims of bias, which relied on the communications between Apandi Ali and Sri Ram, had no basis and was misplaced.
Lawyer Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah and Nur Syahirah Hanapiah appeared for Najib in today’s virtual proceedings.
Sri Ram and deputy public prosecutor Ahmad Akram Gharib appeared for the prosecution. – Bernama, September 8, 2021
