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Thursday, April 15, 2021

Ex-AG Apandi was Najib's witness but his testimony didn't help: DPP

 


Former attorney-general Mohamed Apandi Ali’s testimony did not bolster Najib Abdul Razak’s defence in the latter's RM42 million SRC International corruption case, the Court of Appeal heard today.

Deputy Public Prosecutor V Sithambaram submitted before the three-person bench that this was due to the SRC money trail charts relied on by Apandi to exonerate ex-premier Najib in 2016.

The DPP’s arguments were presented during today’s hearing of Najib’s appeal to quash his conviction and sentencing in the RM42 million SRC corruption case.

Previously in January 2016, Apandi, who was then attorney-general, had cleared Najib, then the prime minister, of any wrongdoing in regard to the inflow of RM42 million of SRC’s funds into Najib's bank accounts.

When speaking to the media in exonerating Najib, Apandi had displayed several flow charts that showed SRC’s monetary flow.

Incidentally, the same flow charts were relied on by the prosecution to successfully convict Najib on seven counts of abuse of power, criminal breach of trust (CBT) and money laundering involving RM42 million of SRC’s funds.

Furthermore, in the midst of the SRC trial at the Kuala Lumpur High Court on March 9 last year, Najib’s defence team had called Apandi to testify on the accused’s behalf.

During his submission before the Court of Appeal today, Sithambaram said that Apandi’s testimony did not assist Najib’s defence as the SRC monetary flow charts had instead shown that the SRC funds entering Najib’s accounts were not the purported Arab donation as he had claimed.

Deputy Public Prosecutor V Sithambaram

Najib’s defence team had relied on the contention that the fund inflows into his account were a donation from Saudi royalty and not from SRC International.

“The said flow charts clearly showed that the SRC funds entering the appellant’s (Najib's) accounts were not the Arab donation.

“The evidence clearly showed that the RM42 million that entered the appellant’s accounts were from SRC and not from an Arab donation or any other sources.

“This evidence cast doubt on the integrity of DW14 (14th defence witness Apandi) in (his earlier) finding that the appellant was innocent of the offences that were being investigated by the MACC,” Sithambaram contended.

The DPP further submitted that the High Court has considered the evidence of Apandi but concluded it could not cast doubt on the prosecution’s case against Najib.

Sithambaram also pointed to Apandi’s own testimony during the SRC criminal trial that he was not aware of new evidence available in the investigations after he had exonerated Najib in January 2016.

'Smart man'

Meanwhile, during the appeal hearing today, levity was injected into the normally sombre proceedings when the DPP remarked that Najib was a "smart person".

Sithambaram made the remark in relation to the allegation that he had subjected Najib to intense cross-examination during the SRC corruption trial.

“The former prime minister is a smart man but that is not the subject of discussion for today,” the DPP said, triggering laughter from those present in court.

The prosecution’s counter-submission against Najib’s appeal will resume on Monday next week.

Ex-prime minister Najib Abdul Razak (with spectacles)

Today’s Court of Appeal bench was chaired by judge Abdul Karim Abdul Jalil. The other members were judges Vazeer Alam Mydin Meera and Has Zanah Mehat.

On July 28 last year, the Kuala Lumpur High Court convicted Najib on one count of abuse of power, three counts of CBT and three counts of money laundering in relation to the RM42 million of funds from SRC.

Trial judge Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali then sentenced Najib to 12 years in jail and a fine of RM210 million.

The lower court allowed the defence team's application for a stay of the sentence pending the disposal of his appeal.

SRC, which was once a subsidiary of troubled sovereign wealth fund 1MDB, later became fully owned by the Minister of Finance Incorporated.

Besides being former premier, Najib was also finance minister, adviser emeritus to SRC and chairperson of 1MDB’s board of advisers. - Mkini

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