News by Adam Aziz

This follows a two-day break, during which Najib attended the SRC trial where the defence and prosecution made their oral submissions on the seven criminal charges over the embezzlement of RM42 million from 1MDB’s former unit SRC International Sdn Bhd.

This was also why Najib did not issue any statement to the public when he found out about the issue, counsel Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah told a press conference after submitting in court at the close of the prosecution case in the SRC trial.

Sithambaram said the basic fact is that “all cheques issued out of accounts 906 and 898 were issued personally” by Najib. 

Najib’s lead counsel Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah has previously indicated that the cross-examination of former 1MDB chief Datuk Shahrol Azral Ibrahim Halmi will take up the whole of this week.

This follows the dismissal of a preliminary objection by DPP Fatnin Yusof against the hearing of Rosmah’s application, made on the technical ground that the applicant did not submit an affidavit to appear as a third party in the forfeiture suit.

“(The board of directors) asked you to go and seek the advice of the CBOA ... (but) you and Jho Low misled the CBOA because you said ‘consistent with the approval of the board’."

In a nutshell, Article 117, which was inserted on August 11, 2009, states that it requires a written approval from the prime minister before 1MDB can decide on a wide range of issues.

This phase would entail 1MDB’s spending of another US$830 million to subscribe to notes issued by PSI’s unit, of which US$500 million is now missing, according to the prosecution in the 1MDB-Tanore trial.

The dupe JV agreement, inked on Sept 28, 2009, eventually resulted in 1MDB diverting US$700 million to Good Star Ltd, a company belonging to fugitive businessman Low Taek Jho, also known as Jho Low.

The prosecution team has 30 to 40 more witness statements to be submitted, alongside all related documents under section 51A of the Criminal Procedural Code (CPC) within two weeks before the trial date of Nov 18, Al-Saifi added.