Najib hoping for fresh SRC trial - lawyer

 

Najib Abdul Razak is hoping for a retrial over the RM42 million SRC International corruption case.

This followed the former prime minister's plan to file an application for fresh evidence in his appeal, namely that Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali should not have heard the SRC case as the then Kuala Lumpur High Court judge.

Najib's lead defence counsel Muhammad Shafee Abdullah today said the application would be to adduce fresh evidence related to Nazlan's purported conflict of interest.

Yesterday, Shafee reportedly claimed Nazlan should have recused himself from hearing the SRC trial against Najib, as the judge used to be a general counsel of Maybank.

This was allegedly because Nazlan's tenure with Maybank coincided with the time when the commercial bank issued a loan to 1MDB. SRC was a subsidiary of the sovereign wealth fund.

Nazlan, who was recently elevated to a Court of Appeal judge, had convicted and sentenced Najib over the RM42 million SRC International corruption case in July 2020.

Court of Appeal judge Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali

Najib currently has an appeal pending before the Federal Court to quash Nazlan's ruling to convict him as well as mete out a 12-year jail term and RM210 million fine in the graft case.

The former premier is also currently facing a separate ongoing Kuala Lumpur High Court trial over the RM2.28 billion 1MDB corruption case.

Shafee said if the Federal Court allows the additional evidence related to Nazlan's past role in Maybank, then he expressed hope that this ultimately could lead to a rehearing of the SRC case.

"We are hoping for a retrial (of the SRC case)," Shafee told the media during a press conference at the Palace of Justice in Putrajaya today.

Additionally, the Federal Court today is hearing Najib's bid to adduce fresh evidence for his main SRC appeal, namely information such as the banking information of the family of former Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) governor Zeti Akhtar Aziz.

The apex court has yet to fix a hearing date for Najib's main appeal to overturn his conviction and sentencing in the SRC corruption case.

SRC used to be a subsidiary of 1MDB. It then became fully owned by the Minister of Finance Incorporated.

Besides being a former premier, Najib also used to be a finance minister, SRC International's advisor emeritus, and chairperson of 1MDB's board of advisors. - Mkini