Charges amended to remove ‘public officer’, says lawyer

Najib was charged under Section 4(1)(b) of the Anti-Money Laundering and Anti-Terrorism Financing and Proceeds of Unlawful Activities Act 2001.

Najib faces a maximum 15 years in jail and not less than five times the amount of proceeds involved, or a RM5 million fine, whichever is higher, if convicted.

Nazlan allowed Najib’s existing RM1 million bail to be extended to cover the three new charges.

Clashes of personalities and touches of humour peppered the proceedings.

In proceedings before Azman, deputy public prosecutor Manoj Kurup was addressing the judge when Najib’s lead counsel Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah stood up and addressed the court without waiting for Manoj to finish. Irked, Manoj sternly told Shafee that he was not yet finished.

When Shafee persisted, Manoj thumped the table, saying: “I am still standing here.”

Calm returned to proceedings when Manoj sat down and Shafee continued to address the court.

Najib also injected humour into normally sombre court proceedings as, in the Sessions Court, he kept correcting an interpreter on the amount of monies from illegal activities that he had allegedly received.

As the court interpreter read out the first charge, in which Najib was alleged to have received RM27 million, she said “RM27 thousand million” during the proceedings, to which Najib told her “million”.

Looking startled at first, the court interpreter smiled and corrected herself, and stated that the amount was RM27 million.

When she read the amount in the second charge as “RM5 thousand million”, Najib again said “million”. However, when it came to the third charge, the interpreter correctly read out the amount as “RM10 million”.

Shafee said the amendments to Najib’s previous charges were for the removal of the words “penjawat awam” (public officer) in the criminal breach of trust charge sheet, and “mengambil bahagian” (taken part) in the abuse of power charge sheet.

“They had realised there were issues about ‘penjawat awam’, especially with what is transpiring in the court pertaining to who a public official is, and things like that.

“But we know there is (still) a serious defect on the charge sheets... but we are not going to (say what it is) now,” he said.

The Federal Court is set to decide on Damansara member of parliament Tony Pua’s appeal on whether a prime minister is a public official. At present, the judiciary had ruled that a prime minister, as an elected representative of the people, is not a public official.

Najib was represented by a eight-man defence team lead by Shafee, while the 11-man prosecution team was headed by deputy public prosecutor Datuk Mohamad Hanafiah Zakaria.

Also present was lawyer Datuk K. Kumaraendran, who is holding a watching brief for Najib’s wife, Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor.

On July 4, Najb claimed trial to the initial three counts of CBT and one of abuse of power.

The four charges were linked to SRC International, a former subsidiary of 1Malaysia Development Bhd.