My client is one of best speakers, Shafee tells 1MDB judge

Najib Abdul Razak is one of the best speakers, the former prime minister’s lead defence counsel told the Kuala Lumpur High Court.

Muhammad Shafee Abdullah informed trial judge Collin Lawrence Sequerah this morning at the onset of the accused taking the witness stand to rebut the RM2.27 billion 1MDB abuse of power and money laundering case.

“My client is one of the best speakers and readers,” the veteran lawyer told the criminal court.

Sequerah was seeking clarification on how long Najib would take to read out the full defence statement, which was broken into two volumes.

The judge was wondering whether the reading out of the voluminous witness statement could be expedited, which Shafee said his client would take note of.

Reading statement

Najib then began reading out the first five pages of his written witness statement, which covered his birth at Kuala Lipis, Pahang on July 23, 1953, and part of his rise into his political career up to his rise to prime minister on April 3, 2009.

As he sat in the witness box, Najib recalled his education background at St John’s Institution in Kuala Lumpur, Malvern College in Worcestershire, England, and University of Nottingham (Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Economics).

He testified that prior to politics in 1976, he worked briefly at Bank Negara Malaysia and later in Petronas as public affairs manager.

Najib recalled that during his premiership, he strived to introduce new economic liberalisation measures to attract and maintain foreign investments, rationalised subsidies under the New Economic Model (NEM), and pushed for free trade agreements.

The ex-premier testified that he introduced the 1Malaysia concept to strengthen race relations, including a merit system to award government scholarships, and repealed the draconian Internal Security Act 1960 to be replaced with the Peaceful Assembly Act 2012 to galvanise the constitutional right to assemble peacefully.

The former finance minister then managed to reach the part about him not being the first premier to hold both the premiership and finance portfolio.

Najib pointed out that Malaysia’s first prime minister Tunku Abdul Rahman held both portfolios from 1957 to 1959 and later from 1960 to 1962, the accused’s own late father Abdul Razak Hussein held both posts from 1970 to 1976, the former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad briefly assumed the finance portfolio in 1990s, and ex-premier Abdullah Ahmad Badawi during his own administration.

“The dual roles allow the prime minister to oversee and coordinate economic and fiscal policies, and the practice continues until today with the prime minister,” Najib said in reference to Anwar Ibrahim.

At this juncture, Shafee asked Najib whether this was an amendment to the witness statement, and the accused replied it was an amendment which was not reflected in the written witness statement.

Shafee then asked for a brief adjournment of the trial so that the defence team could check the witness statement copies.

The lawyer earlier told the court that they tried their best to get Najib’s written witness statement done within a month plus in light of circumstances of trying to liaise with the Kajang Prison Department to allow the defence team to meet the accused and record his witness statement.

Sequerah then stood down proceedings until 2pm this afternoon.

20 witnesses

During this morning’s proceedings, Shafee also informed the judge that the defence team would be calling another 20 witnesses, who include experts.

Dressed in a blue suit with a blue tie, Najib is seen using a cane as he slowly walked out of the witness box.

On Oct 30, the criminal court ordered Najib to enter his defence over four abuse of power and 21 money laundering charges involving RM2.27 billion of funds from 1MDB.

Sequerah ruled that the prosecution succeeded in establishing a prima facie (answerable) case against the former finance minister over the company that is wholly owned by the Ministry of Finance Incorporated (MOF Inc).

The criminal court judge ruled that Najib had to answer the charges due to the strength of the various 50 witness testimonies during the prosecution stage of proceedings that lasted six years since the trial began in 2019. The accused was first charged in 2018.

Prosecutors claimed that fugitive businessperson Low Taek Jho (Jho Low) was involved in the financial wrongdoing at 1MDB at the behest of Najib.

However, the former Pekan MP’s defence team contended that the accused had no knowledge of wrongdoing at the Malaysian sovereign wealth fund, and the embezzlement there was solely perpetrated by Low and members of its management.

Najib is serving a six-year jail sentence over a separate abuse of power case involving RM42 million of funds from SRC International, a former subsidiary of 1MDB.

He is also facing an ongoing criminal trial for the RM27 million SRC money laundering case.

Previously, Najib was acquitted in another criminal case involving 1MDB’s audit report.

He was also last week granted a discharge not amounting to an acquittal in the RM6.6 billion International Petroleum Investment Company criminal breach of trust case.

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