Rosmah enters appearance in lawsuit over missing jewellery

Rosmah Mansor has filed a memorandum of appearance in a lawsuit against her over 43 alleged missing pieces of jewellery.

Lawyers for the wife of jailed former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak filed the appearance on May 2, which in effect means she intends to defend herself against the legal action filed by Lebanese jewellery firm, Global Royalty Trading SAL.

Rosmah’s counsel Rajivan Nambiar confirmed with Malaysiakini this morning about the filing of the memorandum of appearance at the High Court in Kuala Lumpur.

On April 17, Rosmah’s lawyers from Reza Rahim & Rajivan announced in a media statement that she vowed to defend herself against the civil action.

The law firm said: “Our client shall vigorously resist and defend the suit filed against her.”

Global Royalty previously had a similar suit against Rosmah but had withdrawn it.

In relation to the present lawsuit, the Beirut-based firm had refiled it at the civil court, through law firm Messrs David Gurupatham and Koay.

In its original suit, Global Royalty claimed that on Feb 10, 2018, it sent 44 pieces of jewellery, including diamond necklaces, earrings, rings, bracelets and tiaras, each worth between US$124,000 (RM519,183) and US$925,000 (RM3.8 million) to the defendant, hand-delivered via two of its agents.

The company said Rosmah had acknowledged receipt of the items.

The company claimed that Rosmah, via a letter dated May 22, 2018, also confirmed and acknowledged the receipt of the jewellery but stated that all the items were no longer in her possession because they were seized and placed under the custody of the authorities.

Previously, Global Royalty stated that its representative, who inspected the seized items from Oct 25 to Nov 3, 2021, had only found one diamond bracelet from the 44 items belonging to the firm.

In its latest statement of claim, Global Royalty accused Rosmah of lying that the 43 valuables are with the police.

They were among the items seized in May 2018 from residences linked to Najib during the investigation into the 1MDB scandal.

Meanwhile, when contacted after case management of the suit today, Rajivan said the civil court set June 7 for further case management for Rosmah to file her statement of defence or any interlocutory applications.

Under the law, an interlocutory application seeks an order to be given in an intermediate stage, between the commencement and conclusion of the main cause of action.

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