News by Emir Zainul

The 1MDB-Tanore trial was slated to continue today for two days before Justice Collin Lawrence Sequerah. Najib and his team of lawyers were supposed to wrap up arguments in his SRC appeal on May 6 at the Court of Appeal in Putrajaya. 

Najib's lead defence counsel Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah today argued that the former premier's participation in the two Cabinet meetings, which resulted in two government guarantees to SRC for the RM4 billion loans from Retirement Fund (Incorporated) (KWAP), could not be enough to prove that he had personal interest in the company as he was doing so in his professional capacity as the prime minister and finance minister at the time. 

Datuk V Sithambaram: Based on the evidence adduced, there is no basis to say that the judge was the second prosecutor. There was no basis in calling the judge hopelessly incompetent or demonstrated incompetence. This submission is made to save the integrity of this ground of judgement, to ensure that the due administration of justice is not in any way taken.

Ad hoc prosecutor Datuk V Sithambaram pointed out that Najib did not explain why it never crossed his mind to find out how his accounts continued to have sufficient funds for his "limitless expense" despite the so-called Arab donations drying up. 

Ad hoc prosecutor Datuk V Sithambaram submitted that the dispute over the authenticity of Najib's signatures were only brought up to rebut the finding of the court at the close of the prosecution’s case that the former premier was in fact the agent and shadow director of SRC based on the seven disputed documents.

Ad hoc prosecutor Datuk V Sithambaram said that based on the BBM messages, it could be established that Najib must have had knowledge of his finances as he had tasked Jho Low to ensure the accounts had funds for him, to gauge how much he could spend from those accounts.

In fact, the MoF had no knowledge of the operation in SRC and it was unclear about the company’s business and investment activities up until 2015.

Ad hoc prosecutor Datuk V Sithambaram noted that the flow charts Apandi held during his infamous press conference to exonerate Najib on Jan 26, 2016 had in fact clearly showed that the RM42 million that entered the former premier's accounts were from SRC International and not from Arab donations or from any other sources. 

Najib had failed to rebut that Nik Faisal was his messenger for matters relating to SRC and therefore had clear control over SRC.

The defence's argument that SRC's business plan to develop renewable energy for national interest is not supported by facts as there is no evidence to show for it.