KUALA LUMPUR – An application to examine two Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) personnel, which has been submitted to the Court of Appeal, is not to manoeuvre a delay of judgement on Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s SRC International Bhd case, lead counsel Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah said.
Just shy of a week of the decision on the former prime minister’s appeal over his conviction and sentence in the case, Shafee said the application was made to examine MACC chief commissioner Tan Sri Azam Baki and investigation officer Rosli Hussein in view of new evidence, following a revelation by the anti-graft body in November.
“I don’t want you to think that I’m manoeuvring a delay of judgement. Who is the one who delayed the whole thing?
“On November 19, they informed us that they recovered money from Singapore quite some time ago.
If Bank Negara and its governor (Tan Sri Zeti Akhtar Aziz) are compromised, don’t you think that I, as the defence counsel, and my client, should know?
“It is his liberty at stake,” he said in a press conference held at his firm in Kuala Lumpur this afternoon.
During Najib’s tenure as the nation’s sixth prime minister (2009-2018), Zeti held the position of BNM governor, making her the first woman to do so.
On November 19, MACC revealed that at least RM65 million in 1MDB-linked funds were recovered from Singapore.
The funds recovered from the neighbouring country were held by Cutting Edge Industries Ltd, a company that belongs to Zeti’s husband, Datuk Tawfiq Ayman.
The multimillion ringgit worth of funds linked to Cutting Edge Industries are part of MACC’s efforts in recovering the assets and funds linked to 1MDB amounting to RM20.5 billion.
Shafee alleged that the evidence was kept away from his team with the authorities previously claiming that they did not have such proof.
“In October and December 2020, about a year before this, there were articles published by online portals that Zeti’s husband received millions from Jho Low. We made an attempt to get more facts but we were blocked.
My firm wrote to MAS (Monetary Authority of Singapore) to obtain the relevant documents but we were blocked by Singaporean authorities.”
When asked why the defence team did not accept the prosecution’s offer for Zeti to call her as witness during Najib’s SRC International trial, Shafee said they were not made aware that Zeti was under investigation.
“When Zeti was offered to us, we didn’t have her statement. The rule of the game is to not call a witness that you don’t know what they’re going to say.
“If we had known more, I would have made the application to ask the court to call her as a court witness for cross-examination.”
However, the lawyer strongly denied committing a sub judice contempt, saying he was only clarifying matters that are already available in the public domain.
“It is not sub judice because I’m telling and explaining to you, the press, why I made the application.
I’m not suggesting to you how the court will decide, that would be sub judice. I’m not second guessing either. I’m telling you of the various alternatives that can happen.
“The court could very well not even entertain the application and deliver the judgement anyway. It’s all within the discretion of the court,” he stressed.
On July 28 last year, high court judge Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali sentenced Najib to 12 years’ jail and a fine of RM210 million after finding him guilty on seven charges of criminal breach of trust, money laundering, and abuse of position, involving RM42 million in SRC funds.
On November 23, the Court of Appeal had set December 8 to deliver its decision on Najib’s appeal. – The Vibes, December 2, 2021
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