High Court judge acted like second prosecutor, says Shafee
PUTRAJAYA: The High Court judge who convicted and sentenced Datuk Seri Najib Razak to 12 years’ jail and fined him RM210 million had “bent over backwards” to find the former prime minister guilty of offences related to the SRC International Sdn Bhd case.
Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah said Kuala Lumpur High Court judge Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali had acted like a second prosecutor in the trial, which saw his client ending up being found guilty of power abuse, criminal breach of trust and money laundering.
The senior lawyer did not mince his words about the judge’s findings during his submission on the second day of Najib’s appeal hearing at the Court of Appeal here yesterday.
“The judge was bending over backwards...he took on the role of a second prosecutor to save the prosecution’s case.
“Their case would have collapsed based on the contradictory, inconsistent and unreliable testimony of one key witness alone,” he said referring to the testimony of former SRC International director Datuk Suboh Md Yassin’s evidence as a prosecution witness in the case.
“This is the kind of witness if we believe what he says, we will also believe that the cow actually jumped over the moon.”
Shafee said justice Nazlan had also relied on hearsay evidence of witnesses who were not called to testify in the trial.
“The judge was a banker before, so maybe he had conjured his own version of what can happen (in banking transactions).”
There were also some interesting moments when Shafee tried to impress upon the three-member bench on the logic of Najib taking only RM42 million of SRC International money when the 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB)-linked company had been given a loan of RM4 billion.
“This RM42 million would amount to less than one per cent of the RM4 billion, yet my client is accused of taking a mere RM42 million.”
Hearing this, judge Datuk Abdul Karim Abdul Jalil, who is heading the bench, remarked: “A mere RM42 million you say?”
The judge’s sarcasm took Shafee by surprise, but he then replied: “Yes, Yang Arif. You are shocked about the RM42 million, but I urge Yang Arif to also think of the RM4 billion.”
The judge also left the defence slightly flat footed when the topic of Najib having overarching control of SRC International was raised.
“Just where is this overarching control?” Shafee had questioned at one stage of his submission.
Justice Karim then gave a long list of instances where Najib was found to have such control over the company.
“...he also had the power to hire and fire,” he said, prompting Shafee to reply that Najib did not hire or fire anybody despite having the power to do so.
Shafee said the authorities had resorted to reverse engineering in laying the charges against Najib after the former prime minister was ousted following the 14th General Election (GE14) results.
“What happened is after GE14, the authorities were bent on going after Najib. So they ended up doing reverse engineering to show RM42 million got into his personal accounts.”
Najib, 69, is appealing against his sentence and conviction of power abuse, criminal breach of trust and money laundering involving RM42 million of SRC International funds. The former Umno president and Pekan member of parliament was found guilty on July 28 last year after 76 prosecution and defence witnesses gave evidence in the trial which lasted 57 days starting April3, 2019.
The hearing before justice Karim and Datuk Has Zanah Mehat and Datuk Vazeer Alam Mydin Meera continues.