The defence for former premier Najib Abdul Razak has this afternoon filed an application for a stay of his scheduled hearing on seven charges for the SRC International Sdn Bhd trial set to begin next Tuesday at the Kuala Lumpur High Court.

They also filed a certificate of urgency along with the stay application at the Court of Appeal, hoping the appellate court will hear the application on Monday.

When contacted, Najib's lawyer Havinderjit Singh confirmed that the application for a stay and a certificate of urgency had been filed.

Yesterday, it was reported that Najib's lead counsel Muhammad Shafee Abdullah had told the Court of Appeal that it had yesterday filed a notice of appeal over High Court Justice Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali's decision to proceed with the trial on Feb 12 after rejecting an oral application for stay.

This is despite Attorney-General Tommy Thomas withdrawing its application yesterday to have the cases transferred from the Sessions Court to the High Court under Section 418A of the Criminal Procedure Code.

Thomas made the decision owing to the landmark Semenyih Jaya Sdn Bhd and M Indira Gandhi cases, which give the High Court the inherent jurisdiction to decide.

Sources in the Attorney-General's Chambers told Malaysiakini the move to strategically withdraw the application is to make sure there would not be any problems later with regard to Najib's cases should they go, on appeal, to the Court of Appeal or Federal Court so that they would not be dismissed on a technicality.

"Following this, the move by the AG to strategically withdraw the Section 418A application is done in the best interests to make sure no problems cropped up later," said the source on condition of anonymity.

Despite the withdrawal, Justice Nazlan decided to hear the case which had been fixed earlier rather than what the defence argued that it should be brought back to the Sessions Court and for the High Court registrar to decide which judge should hear the case and not for Justice Nazlan to unilaterally decide to hear the case.

This had resulted in Najib filing the notice of appeal over Justice Nazlan's decision as argued by Shafee who also wanted this issue to be heard and decided first by the appellate court.

As a result, Najib's appeal at the Court of Appeal yesterday over a gag order, the challenge to have senior lawyer Sulaiman Abdullah's appointment as prosecutor be removed and to have further documents from witnesses had to be adjourned to March 12, pending the recent appeal filed.

Najib is today recharged with three counts of money laundering with regard to RM47 million today at the Sessions Court.

Hence, there are a total of 42 charges levelled against him at present.

Against this backdrop, it remains to be seen whether the SRC International case, the first of Najib's trial when he was first charged last July 4, will proceed or otherwise.

Najib is charged with seven counts of criminal breach of trust or abusing his powers with regard to the SRC International case. 

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