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Lead defence lawyer Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, who was giving his oral submissions during the trial today, said the defence had an uphill task to defend Najib as “a victim of a scam” because of the prejudice that he was a man of finance and, therefore, should have been aware of the money coming into his accounts.

As both cases involve former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak as the accused, Najib’s lawyer Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah had sought to vacate the 1MDB-Tanore trial for today as the defence is currently in the midst of making their oral submissions in the SRC case.

The group had in February this year announced the proposed disposal. Subsequently, on March 10, it said pursuant to the disposal, Berjaya Kyoto Development Kabushiki Kaisha (BKD) which is another subsidiary of Berjaya Corp had entered into a leaseback agreement of the hotel.

Former Finance Ministry secretary Datuk Maliami Hamad had testified that such hastiness “was not normal practice and had not happened before”, ad hoc prosecutor Datuk V Sithambaram said during final submissions in the SRC trial of former premier Datuk Seri Najib Razak.

Health Ministry director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah: Today is actually the 14th day from the day [they started] isolation or quarantine. So we have taken the swab [samples], all the post-Cabinet meeting members are negative. So tomorrow they will resume work in their office.

Addressing the defence's assertion that Najib had no knowledge of the going-ons in his AmBank accounts, appointed prosecutor Datuk V Sithambaram told the High Court that the evidence demonstrated otherwise.

He said that based on the BlackBerry Messenger transcripts adduced as evidence, Jho Low had full knowledge of Najib's spending pattern and the amounts that the then prime minister was about to spend.

Explaining to Justice Nazlan Mohd Ghazali, appointed prosecutor Datuk V Sithambaram (pictured) said they did not need to call chief financial officer (CFO) See Yoke Peng as SRC director Datuk Suboh Md Yassin, who was a signatory for the company, had signed off on funds which were transferred out of SRC and eventually ended up in the personal accounts of Datuk Seri Najib Abdul Razak.

Appointed prosecutor Datuk V Sithambaram pointed out an oddity — that when Najib removed Nik Faisal Ariff Kamil as the chief executive officer (CEO) of SRC amid complaints about financial misconduct, he but still kept the latter as the mandate holder.

Ho Hup chief executive officer Datuk Derek Wong Kit Leong said the firm was delighted to secure the sizeable contract during the current highly challenging Covid-19 pandemic period, when businesses across the economy had been badly affected.

Lawyer Harvinderjit Singh took one and a half hours to conclude the submissions before the prosecution, saying his client had a firm belief the money he spent was from donations as the funds had come into his accounts over a period of a few years.