Zaid queries Bar’s silence over conflict of interest claims

 

A rally by the Bar Council last week calling for judicial independence and to protest against an MACC investigation of a judge.

PETALING JAYA: A former law minister has questioned the apparent silence of the Malaysian Bar and opposition parties over allegations of a conflict of interest involving Nazlan Mohd Ghazali, the judge who convicted Najib Razak of corruption.

Zaid Ibrahim said the Bar and other detractors had urged the previous trial judge, Sofian Abd Razak, to recuse himself from the SRC International case in 2018.

The Bar Council had said then that there was a conflict of interest as Sofian was the brother of Pahang state executive councillor Sofi Razak, who is with Umno.

Sofian was replaced by Nazlan who has since run into controversy when the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission said a report had been lodged about an unexplained sum of more than RM1 million in Nazlan’s bank account.

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“However, no one has commented on it till now,” Zaid said in a video clip posted on social media. “When will the Bar Council and Pakatan Harapan address the matter of a conflict of interest? Why are you keeping silent?” he said.

Two weeks ago, Umno Supreme Council member Puad Zarkashi had similarly criticised the Bar, saying it was subjective about what issues it defended. He said the Bar should have demanded the creation of a judicial tribunal to investigate Nazlan.

However, the Bar Council said that any call to establish a tribunal to deal with the issue of conflict of interest was premature and misconceived.

Last week, a protest rally was held by the Bar Council against judicial interference. It also called for judicial independence to be upheld.

Najib and his lawyer, Shafee Abdullah previously said Nazlan should have disqualified himself from serving as trial judge in the SRC International case.

Before being made a judge, Nazlan had been general counsel and company secretary for the Malayan Banking group, and was reported to have been involved in the bank’s decision to give 1MDB a loan of RM4.17 billion.

In the SRC International case, Najib was convicted in July 2020 of charges of abuse of power, criminal breach of trust and money laundering. Nazlan sentenced Najib to a 12-year jail term.

Najib has filed an appeal against the conviction and sentence, and also sought to have fresh evidence introduced in the SRC International trial.

Nazlan was elevated to the Court of Appeal in February this year. - FMT