Former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak’s lead counsel Muhammad Shafee Abdullah said he is "delighted" to see the charges against his client were not fully thought out, which he claimed shows that the prosecution is desperate.

“I am quite surprised but at the same time, delighted that there is the sort of charges they brought because I thought that these are desperate charges.

“It doesn’t show anything deeper than that (the charges) and it also clearly shows that the authorities are desperate to bring charges on 1MDB to keep to their obligation to see through their election manifesto that they will bring charges on 1MDB,” he told reporters today.

He was speaking to reporters outside the Kuala Lumpur Court Complex after representing Najib at the Kuala Lumpur Sessions Court.

Najib was charged with 21 counts of money laundering and four counts of abuse of power today.

Shafee said the prosecution can only prove money coming in and out of Najib’s bank account but not the purpose or intent of the transactions.

He also noted that the charges also showed that Najib had returned almost all of the money he had received to the bank account where it came from, this just months after the 13th general election in 2013.

“So now you tell me, this is from the MACC’s documents, the police documents. These are the charges.

“So are you still maintaining that Najib is the biggest crook? If he is the biggest crook, he is must be a bloody fool to return the money,” he said.

He also claimed the authorities were attempting to silence Najib because his explanations of the 1MDB scandal were beginning to take hold on social media. He said he was told that Najib’s Facebook page attracted more visitors than any other Malaysian politician.

He pointed out that when he had previously applied for a gag order to prevent members of the media and the public from discussing the merits of Najib’s corruption charges, it was attorney-general Tommy Thomas himself who objected by arguing that such an order would violate freedom of speech.

“But today they (the prosecution) say Najib must be stopped from speaking. So what is their policy? What is their principle?

“This is coming from the direction of the attorney general himself to make an inconsistent stance. So you can see clearly these are steps of a desperate authority. By all means, they want to get Najib at all costs,” he said.

'Very excited'

Asked about the money-laundering charges he himself is facing, Shafee said did not disqualify him as Najib’s counsel.

As for the book "Billion Dollar Whale" by Wall Street Journal journalists Tom Wright and Bradley Hope, Shafee claimed he was “very excited” about the book and it would be interesting to have it tendered as evidence.

He alleged the book confirmed that financier Low Taek Jho was likely to have misled people.

“The book said so. So it is very likely that in event of any situation where just because you have acted in a certain way, it doesn’t mean you have not been unduly influenced or misled.

“That is how people get cheated,” he said.