Apex court rejects Najib's bid to adduce fresh SRC evidence
Chief Justice Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat and the nation's other top four judges denied Najib Abdul Razak's bid to introduce additional evidence in his RM42 million SRC International corruption appeal.
This afternoon, the five-person Federal Court bench unanimously dismissed the former prime minister's appeal to adduce alleged fresh evidence such as the banking information of former Bank Negara governor Zeti Akhtar Aziz's family.
Chief Justice Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat and the nation's other top four judges denied Najib Abdul Razak's bid to introduce additional evidence in his RM42 million SRC International corruption appeal.
This afternoon, the five-person Federal Court bench unanimously dismissed the former prime minister's appeal to adduce alleged fresh evidence such as the banking information of former Bank Negara governor Zeti Akhtar Aziz's family.
The other apex bench members were Court of Appeal president Rohana Yusuf, Chief Judge of Malaya Azahar Mohamed, Chief Judge of Sabah and Sarawak Abang Iskandar Abang Hashim and Federal Court judge Mohd Zawawi Salleh.
Najib is appealing against the Court of Appeal's decision on Dec 7 last year, which dismissed the former finance minister's application to adduce additional evidence.
The next day on Dec 8, the Court of Appeal dismissed his main appeal to quash his conviction as well as a 12-year jail term and RM210 million fine over the SRC graft case.
The Federal Court has yet to fix a date to hear Najib’s main appeal to overturn his guilty verdict and sentencing in the SRC case.
During open-court proceedings this afternoon, Maimun ruled that the appeal by the former advisor emeritus lacked merit as the alleged fresh evidence has no relevance to the SRC appeal.
She noted that the evidence sought bears no relevance to the issue of Najib’s knowledge of the RM42 million, which is the main issue in the SRC case.
The top judge ruled that Najib’s application does not abide by the requirement that the evidence was not available at the time of the SRC trial before the High Court.
“The evidence sought to be adduced relates to another case namely (Najib’s RM2.28 billion separate) 1MDB trial, and not to the present case (Najib’s appeal in the RM42 million SRC case),” Maimun said.
“We do not see how the sought evidence is relevant to the issue of knowledge,” she said.
Maimun also pointed out that the application was too wide in its scope of the evidence sought and failed to describe specifically the evidence sought.
She said that the affidavit in support of the additional evidence bid did not state the rationale or which specific fact linked to the prospective witnesses with the purported fresh evidence.
“The witnesses (such as Zeti) were made available by (the prosecution at the start of the defence stage of Najib’s SRC trial), but the appellant (Najib) declined to call (the witnesses),” Maimun said.
The chief justice also highlighted that the Court of Appeal had given a fair hearing before dismissing the additional evidence bid, contrary to submissions from Najib’s lawyers.
She said that the judiciary is empowered under Section 15A of the Courts of Judicature Act to direct proceedings to be carried out via hybrid hearing incorporating both zoom and on-site hearing.
She said this provision was tailor-made for situations where a legal team is put under quarantine for testing Covid-19 positive or come in close contact with someone who is positive.
She pointed out that a legal team that is under quarantine due to Covid-19 could still access court documents via modern technology.
Maimun also noted that the Court of Appeal had given Najib's lawyers and the prosecution team were each given around an hour each to submit on Dec 7.
Shafee previously submitted before the Federal Court that the Court of Appeal had not given a fair hearing due to rejecting an application by Najib’s lawyers to postpone the Dec 7 hearing, due to Covid-19 related reasons.
Maimun noted that Najib’s lawyers had filed the application “at the eleventh hour” on Dec 2 and were still filing reply submissions even on the eve of the Court of Appeal hearing of the additional evidence bid.
“It was the appellant (Najib) who filed (additional evidence application) so close to the decision date (Dec 8, 2021) on the substantive appeal.
“The appellant was not deprived of the right to be heard or denied a fair trial,” she said, adding that on a whole the Court of Appeal has rightly concluded there was no merit in Najib’s additional evidence application.
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