Trial judge appeared 'motivated' to hold Najib to account, lawyer submits

The trial judge in the RM42 million SRC International corruption case appeared “motivated” to hold Najib Abdul Razak to account, the Court of Appeal heard today.

Najib’s counsel Farhan Read submitted this during the hearing of an appeal by the former prime minister to quash his conviction and sentencing over the case.

“There appears to be a desire to hold the accused to account. The judge was motivated to hold the accused to account.

“The criminal law is not the proper avenue for the accused to be held to account, as the accused already held to account during the (14th) general election,” he submitted before the three-person bench chaired by Court of Appeal judge Abdul Karim Abdul Jalil.

The other members of the bench were Court of Appeal judges Vazeer Alam Mydin Meera and Has Zanah Mehat. The hearing continues until the afternoon.

“At the end of the day, the learned judge wanted to hold somebody accountable. The learned judge saw it as a moral imperative.

“Fact of the matter is that the only person left in Malaysia that (the judge) could hold accountable in the case is Najib.

“Key players, Jho Low and Nik Faisal (Ariff Kamil, the former CEO of SRC), have fled the jurisdiction (Malaysia),” Farhan said, adding that this is critical to the RM42 million SRC case.

“The desire of the learned judge to hold somebody accountable is understandable as this (RM42 million in SRC funds) is a loss to Malaysia, but it is misplaced to lump it on the head of the person left behind.

“We can sympathise with the judge and the struggle he must face as he was put under the spotlight due to the case of the century.

“But we cannot sanctify his lordship's (trial judge) assessment of the evidence (in the SRC case) nevertheless,” he submitted.

Previously, Najib's legal team had submitted that the High Court seemed to have added additional points into its full ground of judgment against the Pekan MP.

On July 28 last year, the Kuala Lumpur High Court convicted Najib on one count of abuse of power, three counts of CBT, and three counts of money laundering in relation to the RM42 million of funds from SRC.

Trial judge Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali had then sentenced Najib to 12 years in jail and a fine of RM210 million. 

However, the lower court allowed the defence team's application to stay the sentence's execution pending the disposal of his appeal.

SRC at one point used to be a subsidiary of troubled sovereign wealth fund 1MDB. However, the company later became fully owned by the Minister of Finance Incorporated.

Besides being the former premier, Najib was also the finance minister, adviser emeritus to SRC, and chairperson of 1MDB’s board of advisers.

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