Court allows Najib to attend Parliament, proceedings to end earlier at 3.15pm
Former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak was allowed to attend Parliament proceedings this afternoon.
This followed the Kuala Lumpur High Court ruling that the Pekan MP's RM2.28 billion 1MDB corruption trial will end earlier at 3.15pm this afternoon.
Justice Collin Lawrence Sequerah made this ruling following the...
Former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak was allowed to attend Parliament proceedings this afternoon.
This followed the Kuala Lumpur High Court's ruling that the Pekan MP's RM2.28 billion 1MDB corruption trial will end earlier at 3.15pm today.
Judge Collin Lawrence Sequerah (above) made this ruling after the court received a letter from the Dewan Rakyat speaker today.
Yesterday, the same judge dismissed an oral application by Najib's lead defence counsel Muhammad Shafee Abdullah for today's proceedings to end around 1.30pm to enable the accused to attend the Dewan Rakyat session.
"I have digested the letter from the (Dewan Rakyat) speaker.
"I have decided that if your client needs to be there at 3.30pm, I have decided to continue through the lunch break," Sequerah said.
This meant that there would be no lunch break today and court proceedings would continue until 3.15pm.
"Your client can then proceed to Parliament," Sequerah informed Najib's defence team during open court proceedings at around 1.05pm this afternoon.
Proceedings then resumed with the defence continuing their cross-examination of the ninth prosecution witness, former 1MDB CEO Shahrol Azral Ibrahim Halmi.
Around 3.03pm this afternoon, Najib's defence counsel Wan Aizuddin Wan Mohammed informed the court that his cross-examination would be entering a technical area, and applied for an earlier adjournment of proceedings.
However, Sequerah firmly reminded the defence that proceedings would end around 3.15pm today, and "not a minute sooner".
Around 3.15pm, proceedings adjourned to tomorrow morning, with Najib seen leaving the court.
Najib is on trial over four charges of abusing his position to obtain gratification and 21 counts of money laundering in relation to RM2.28 billion in 1MDB funds.
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