Najib's lawyers unable to find defence witness

Summary

• Najib Abdul Razak’s legal team tells the High Court in Putrajaya that they were unable to track down lawyer Brian Chia to testify for the former prime minister’s defence against the RM2.27 billion 1MDB abuse of power and money laundering case.

• Defence counsel Wan Azwan Aiman Wan Fakhruddin tells trial judge Collin Lawrence Sequerah that no members of the legal fraternity they spoke to know where the defence witness is.

1MDB TRIAL | Najib Abdul Razak’s legal team was unable to locate a lawyer to testify on behalf of the former prime minister’s defence.

The accused’s counsel Wan Azwan Aiman Wan Fakhruddin told the High Court in Putrajaya this afternoon over their attempt to contact Brian Chia.

Chia, a former partner of law firm Wong & Partners, was among the witnesses offered by the prosecution team to Najib’s defence team when the accused was ordered to enter his defence in the RM2.27 billion 1MDB abuse of power and money laundering trial.

“We tried to call Chia Hock Gee (Brian Chia) but to no avail. I was informed (we were) unable to locate him.

“We tried to call him but to no avail. We also contacted and spoke to other lawyers in the legal fraternity, they also do not know where he is.

“To the best of our knowledge, he is not within (Malaysia’s) jurisdiction due to our attempts to contact him, but we do not have confirmation of this, as we do not have access to the relevant (government) agencies,” Wan Azwan told trial judge Collin Lawrence Sequerah.

Tracking down Chia

When queried by the judge, deputy public prosecutor Kamal Baharin Omar said they would try to track down Chia for the defence.

The DPP added that in the event that Chia could not be found, the prosecution would hand over the lawyer’s court witness statement to the defence team.

Chia was initially included among the prosecution’s list of witnesses, so his witness statement was prepared for court testimony. However, he was never called during the prosecution stage of the trial.

When Sequerah asked whether the defence team had any other witnesses for today, Wan Azwan said they did not have any other witnesses other than Chia whom they could not locate.

The lawyer then applied for the criminal court to extend a subpoena so that MACC investigating officer Nasharudin Amir could come tomorrow to testify for Najib.

Wan Azwan then also applied for the trial to be adjourned until tomorrow because the defence team does not have other witnesses today.

Sequerah then allowed the application to extend the subpoena for Nasharudin, and adjourned the trial to tomorrow.

1MDB previously sued Chia and Wong & Partners in the civil court for compensation over alleged involvement in the fraud linked to the troubled Malaysian sovereign wealth fund.

However, the fund later dropped the civil action against Chia and the law firm.

Prima facie case

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

Sequerah ruled that the prosecution succeeded in establishing a prima facie (answerable) case against Najib due to the strength of some 50 witness testimonies (not inclusive of Chia who was not called by prosecutors).

Between early December last year and late January this year, Najib spent 26 days on the witness stand trying to raise reasonable doubt in the prosecution’s case.

Najib contended that he had neither knowledge nor involvement in wrongdoing at 1MDB, and that embezzlement at the troubled Malaysian sovereign wealth fund was solely masterminded by fugitive businessperson Low Taek Jho (Jho Low) and other members of its management.

The ex-finance minister also contended that he was given a donation promise by the late Saudi King monarch King Abdullah during a meeting between them in Riyadh in 2010.

The accused has been serving a six-year jail sentence since August 2022 over a separate graft case involving RM42 million from SRC, a former subsidiary of 1MDB.

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