Former Inland Revenue Board (IRB) officer Syed Nasrul Fahmi Syed Mohamad is on medical leave (MC) today, resulting in lawyer Muhammad Shafee Abdullah’s RM9.5 million money laundering trial being vacated to tomorrow morning instead.
During proceedings before the Kuala Lumpur High Court this morning, deputy public prosecutor Afzainizam Abdul Aziz informed that the seventh prosecution witness is unwell.
“My witness Nasrul is unable to attend (trial) today as he is on MC. We were informed at around 8am today that he is not well,” Afzainizam said.
The DPP then applied for today’s proceedings to be postponed to tomorrow for Shafee’s legal team’s cross-examination of the witness.
Afzainizam added that after Nasrul finished with his testimony, the next witness to take the stand is the investigation officer who conducted the probe against Shafee.
Defence counsel Harvinderjit Singh agreed to the postponement.
Trial judge Muhammad Jamil Hussin then vacated proceedings to tomorrow morning.
The charges
On Sept 13, 2018, at the Kuala Lumpur Sessions Court, Shafee (above) claimed trial to four charges linked to RM9.5 million allegedly received from former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak, via two cheques.
The lawyer was charged with two counts of money laundering over the RM9.5 million, which he was accused of receiving in two tranches, the first RM4.3 million on Sept 13, 2013, and the second payment of RM5.2 million on Feb 17, 2014.
Shafee was also charged with two counts of involvement in transactions of proceeds from unlawful activity by making inaccurate statements in relation to the payments on March 3 and June 29, 2015.
The 69-year-old lawyer was alleged to have deposited the two cheques into his personal account at a CIMB Bank branch in Bukit Tunku, Kuala Lumpur.
For the first two charges, Shafee was charged under Section 4(1)(b) of the Anti-Money Laundering and Anti-Terrorism Financing Act (Amla) 2001.
The other two charges are framed under Section 113(1)(a) of the Income Tax Act 1967.
The case was later transferred to the High Court in Kuala Lumpur and was supposed to resume today.
Najib is also facing numerous separate criminal trials, among them the RM2.28 billion 1MDB corruption case. Shafee is his defence lawyer. - Mkini
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