KUALA LUMPUR – Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak’s 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) trial at the high court here was postponed to tomorrow, as his MySejahtera status appeared yellow – classifying him as a person under surveillance.
Justice Datuk Collin Lawrence Sequerah vacated today’s hearing after Najib’s counsel Datuk Hariharan Tara Singh informed the court that the MySejahtera status for both Najib and his lead counsel Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah remained as “person under surveillance” and “casual contact” respectively.
This was even after informing the Health Ministry (MoH) of their Covid-19 test results.
Hariharan said, upon arriving in court earlier, Najib’s MySejahtera status still had “person under surveillance” on display, while Muhammad Shafee’s status was stated as “casual contact”.
Both statuses turned to blue, indicating low-risk status, after court security instructed them to refresh their MySejahtera profiles.
“However, they were asked to refresh their MySejahtera profile again after entering the courtroom and their status reverted to “casual contact” and “person under surveillance,” said Hariharan.
Justice Sequerah then instructed both Najib and Muhammad Shafee to take the RTK-Ag test and to inform the MoH of the results for the ministry's reassessment.
The judge then ordered proceedings to resume tomorrow to allow the defence to provide an update on both Najib and Muhammad Shafee’s MySejahtera status.
Meanwhile, deputy public prosecutor (DPP) Ahmad Akram Gharib said two witnesses who were supposed to testify this week – former 1MDB chairman Tan Sri Mohd Bakke Salleh and Najib’s special officer Datuk Wan Ahmad Shihab Wan Ismail – could not make it to court.
“We have received an instruction from senior DPP Datuk Seri Gopal Sri Ram to apply for the trial to be conducted in a hybrid manner,” said Ahmad Akram.
Hariharan, however, objected to the proposal to conduct the online hearing, pointing out that the prosecution had almost one month to prepare for the new witnesses to take the stand.
Justice Sequerah said he would decide on the hybrid trial application tomorrow.
Najib, 68, is facing four charges of using his position to obtain bribes totalling RM2.3 bil from 1MDB funds and 21 charges of money laundering involving the same amount. – Bernama, December 13, 2021
