PETALING JAYA: Najib Razak, who is appealing to overturn his conviction in the RM42 million SRC International Sdn Bhd corruption case, has filed an application for more time to file his grounds of appeal in the Federal Court.
The former prime minister, who filed the motion last week, wants the court to give him until April 25 to file the petition of appeal.
Appeal records from the Court of Appeal were served on Najib’s lawyers and the prosecution on March 31.
According to Federal Court rules, Najib is required to file his grounds of appeal within 10 days.
In an affidavit to support the motion, Najib said the Court of Appeal supplied his lawyers 176 volumes of appeal records.
“It is impossible for the lawyers to go through the records in a short time to prepare the petition of appeal and to respond to the Court of Appeal judgment,” he said in the motion sighted by FMT.
He said he had informed the matter to ad hoc prosecutor V Sithmbaram and deputy public prosecutor Ashrof Adrin Kamarul during case management before deputy registrars Siti Hajar Mustaffa and Wan Fatimah Zaharah Yussof on April 8.
The prosecution, who are the respondents, have expressed no objections to Najib’s application for more time to file the appeal records.
“I believe the court will allow the application in the interest of justice due to the voluminous appeal records for the defence to go through,” said Najib, who had filed a certificate of urgency for a Federal Court bench to hear the motion.
On Dec 8, Court of Appeal judge Abdul Karim Abdul Jalil, who led a three-member bench, affirmed Najib’s conviction and his 12-year jail term and RM210 million fine for abuse of power, money laundering, and misappropriating RM42 million in SRC funds.
Karim said trial judge Nazlan Mohd Ghazali, who is now a Court of Appeal judge, did not misdirect himself for appellate intervention. - FMT
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