Najib Abdul Razak was finally allowed to attend the open-court proceedings of his RM2.28 billion 1MDB corruption trial.
The former prime minister and finance minister, whose MySejahtera status still indicates a Casual Contact (yellow colour), was seen sitting in the dock during the criminal court hearing before judge Collin Lawrence Sequerah.
The accused’s counsel Hariharan Tara Singh informed Sequerah that Najib’s attendance in court today was not in breach of government regulation and judicial direction.
“We wish to put on record that he (Najib) is not in breach of government regulation and court direction,” the lawyer said.
When contacted later, deputy public prosecutor Mohamed Mustaffa P Kunyalam confirmed that Najib’s MySejahtera status was still yellow as of this morning.
SOP for courts
Proceedings before Sequerah continued with Hariharan cross-examining prosecution witness Ismee Ismail, a former 1MDB board member.
According to standard operating procedure (SOP) for courts nationwide issued by the Federal Court Registrar and in effect as of Jan 27 this year, it made no specific reference to those with Casual Contact MySejahtera status not being allowed in court premises.
The SOP at the judiciary’s portal stated: “It is not allowed to attend court if confirmed Covid-19 positive; body temperature exceeding 37.5 degrees; having symptoms like fever, coughing, colds or hard of breathing; is a close contact with a Covid-19 positive case, and categorised as Persons Under Investigation (PUI)/ Person Under Surveillance (PUS); and have undergone swab test but yet to receive results.”
On Monday and Tuesday this week, Najib’s yellow MySejahtera status barred him from entering the High Court in Kuala Lumpur, resulting in his 1MDB trial being vacated.
The Kuala Lumpur Courts Complex generally only allows those with low-risk or blue status to enter the premises.
As a result, Najib’s 1MDB trial proper did not proceed on those two days. On Monday, the only proceeding carried out was the hearing of the prosecution’s application for the trial proper to be conducted via hybrid online hearing, whereby the judge and prosecution team would be on-site at the Kuala Lumpur Courts Complex, while Najib and his defence team can follow proceedings online.
On Tuesday, Sequerah ruled against the hybrid online hearing but did not rule out the possibility of doing so in the future.
Najib’s lead defence counsel Muhammad Shafee Abdullah and a large number of the defence team were also Covid-19 casual or close contacts with reflective MySejahtera status.
Hybrid proceedings
On Tuesday and Wednesday last week, the Court of Appeal at the Palace of Justice, Putrajaya, carried out hybrid online criminal proceedings related to Najib's RM42 million SRC International corruption appeal.
The proceedings saw the Court of Appeal judges and prosecution team being present at the Palace of Justice, while Najib and his defence team followed the proceedings via Zoom from another location.
This was due to Najib and members of his defence team coming in close contact with a Covid-19 positive person.
Since the Covid-19 outbreak hit Malaysian shores last year, the civil jurisdiction courts have conducted many case managements and hearings fully online.
However, by comparison, the criminal jurisdiction courts generally still try for the most part to conduct trials in open court.
Najib's charges
Concerning the ongoing graft trial before Sequerah, Najib is facing four charges of abuse of power and 21 counts of money laundering involving RM2.28 billion of Minister of Finance Incorporated fully owned 1MDB's funds.
Besides being a former premier, the accused also used to be finance minister and chairperson of 1MDB's board of advisers.
The prosecution contended that fugitive businessperson Low Taek Jho, or better known as Jho Low, on the behest of Najib, had acted with several other 1MDB personnel to misappropriate billions of ringgit of funds from the sovereign wealth fund and used a circuitous and complex financial route to transfer part of the funds to the then premier's personal bank account.
However, the defence team contended that Najib had no knowledge about wrongdoing at 1MDB and that Low and several other members of the sovereign wealth fund entirely masterminded the affair. - Mkini
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