A-G TO SEEK EARLY HEARING
Prosecution to write to Court of Appeal president regarding Najib’s case dates
THE prosecution will write a letter to the Court of Appeal president for an early hearing of Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s appeal over the public prosecutor’s withdrawal of the certificate of transfer on his seven charges linked to SRC International Sdn Bhd’s funds.
This was informed by AttorneyGeneral (A-G) Tommy Thomas, who is the public prosecutor in the case, when the matter came up before High Court judge Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali.
Yesterday was supposedly fixed for the first day of trial of the former prime minister’s criminal breach of trust, abuse of position and money-laundering cases.
Thomas told the court that the letter to Court of Appeal president Tan Sri Ahmad Maarop was meant to get an early hearing date for the appeal.
“We believe that the appeal process could be settled by next week.
“So the trial dates that have been previously fixed from today until Feb 22 are vacated and the future dates from Feb 25 to March 29 are kept intact.
“We do not want to delay the trial,” he said.
Deputy public prosecutor Datuk V. Sithambaram said the prosecution would be writing to the Court of Appeal president for an early hearing because it involved an issue of public importance.
“The prosecution is confident that we can proceed from Feb 22 until the end of March so that there is no further delay.”
A three-man Court of Appeal panel on Monday allowed Najib’s application to temporarily postpone his trial pending the disposal of his appeal on grounds that there was merit and special circumstances for the court to grant the stay.
The court was of the view that if a stay was not granted and the trial proceeds on the scheduled date, it would render the proceedings a nullity and would result in a waste of time of the parties involved.
Najib had sought to stay the trial relating to his seven charges over funds amounting to RM42 million belonging to SRC International, which was scheduled to commence yesterday as he wanted the court to decide on his appeal first.
He had filed an appeal against a High Court decision allowing the A-G’s application to withdraw the certificate to transfer the seven charges faced by Najib from the Sessions Court to the High Court and the matter had yet to be heard by the Court of Appeal.
The 66-year-old Pekan member of parliament was charged on July 4, last year with three counts of criminal breach of trust and one charge of abusing his position over SRC International funds amounting to RM42 million.
Following that, on Aug 8 last year, he was charged with another three counts of money laundering involving the same funds.