KUALA LUMPUR: The High Court has rescheduled the submission hearing dates in Najib Razak’s SRC International trial for corruption and money laundering as the defence has been hampered by the ongoing movement control order.
In an email to parties on April 3, trial judge Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali allowed the defence’s application to have the written and oral submissions heard on new dates.
Written submissions must be filed by April 28, with the prosecution told to reply on May 12.
Nazlan also fixed hearings for oral submissions for three days from May 18.
According to an official from the Attorney-General’s Chambers, the earlier oral submission dates of May 12 and 15 have been vacated.
FMT understands that Najib’s lead counsel, Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, wrote to High Court deputy registrar Mahyudin Mohd Som on April 1 asking for the extensions.
The former prime minister’s defence concluded on March 11 after a 33-day hearing.
Nineteen witnesses were called, including former attorney-general Mohamed Apandi Ali, ex-Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission chief Dzulkifli Ahmad and former ministers Anifah Aman and Jamil Khir Baharom.
Besides Shafee, Najib was represented by lawyers Harvinderjit Singh and Farhan Read.
Ad hoc prosecutor V Sithambaram led the prosecution team with deputy public prosecutors Mohd Ashrof Adrin Kamarul, Muhammad Izzat Fauzan and Donald Joseph Franklin.
On Nov 11, Nazlan ordered Najib to enter his defence, saying the prosecution had successfully adduced credible evidence proving every essential ingredient of the offences.
Najib is accused of abusing his power as prime minister by giving government guarantees on SRC International’s RM4 billion loan from Retirement Fund Inc.
He is also charged with three counts of money laundering and three counts of criminal breach of trust in the transfer of RM42 million to his accounts from the former 1MDB unit. - FMT
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.