Najib fails in bid to have trial stalled

KUALA LUMPUR: It looked like the first day of his trial would be stalled as Datuk Seri Najib Razak informed the court that he had filed a motion at the eleventh hour to declare the seven charges against him in the SRC International trial as defective.

The prosecution claimed this was yet another delaying tactic but the court decided that the motion could be heard later, paving the way for the first witness to testify.

At the outset of the proceedings, Najib’s lawyer Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah told the High Court the motion ought to be heard first before any witnesses were called.

“We have filed a certificate of urgency this morning,” he said.

Attorney General Tommy Thomas objected to the application, saying the motion was not properly served on his office.

“We are not ready for this. There is no reason why any motion on the charges should be brought on at this stage.

“If they are saying something is wrong with the charges, they had ample time (prior to this), but certainly not this morning. There can be no other inference from this conduct other than they are trying to delay the trial,” Thomas said.

Co-counsel Datuk Mohd Yusof Zainal Abiden then said the court should hear the motion first, as the trial would become a nullity if the court was in favour of the defence, and amend the charges.

DPP Datuk V. Sithambaram replied that the eleventh hour motion was not fixed for hearing yesterday.

“They say the charges are bad. We say they are not bad. We run the risk if the charges are bad.

“This move is merely to delay the trial and have the trial, as they have put in their application, stayed, struck off or postponed,” he said.

Justice Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali then deferred the hearing of Najib’s application to a later date.

The court then ordered for the first witness to take the stand.