The judge in the High Court of Kuala Lumpur, Justice Mohd Sophian Abdul Razak, who is presiding over the criminal case against former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak, had been selected at random through a court e-filing system.

In a statement today by the chief registrar of the Federal Court, it was explained that as of June 13 last year, the registration of all criminal cases with the lower courts and the High Court in Kuala Lumpur were carried out online.

"It is done online through the courts' e-filing portal. The registration of the case begins after the public prosecutor files the case in the e-filing system. The system would then randomly distribute the case among the judges who handle criminal cases.

"With regard to the Public Prosecutor vs Najib Abdul Razak's case (on alleged criminal breach of trust and abuse of power), the system filed and randomly distributed this case to High Court 3 (Justice Sophian's court)," it added.

This comes as questions were raised over why Justice Sophian was chosen to oversee the case after it came to light that he is the younger brother of Mohd Soffi Abdul Razak, a five-term Umno assemblyperson in Pahang and a four-time state exco member.

Najib, who incidentally is also from Pahang, was the former Umno president and its current Pekan division chief.

Malaysian Bar president George Varughese had, in a statement yesterday, raised the matter and urged Justice Sophian to recuse himself.

On Wednesday, Najib was charged and claimed trial to three counts of committing criminal breach of trust with SRC International funds to the tune of RM42 million, and one count of abuse of power in relation to the same.