A crowd of people have taken the arduous journey to arrive at the entrance of the Palace of Justice this morning for day five of Najib Abdul Razak’s appeal in the RM42 million SRC International corruption case.
Travelling all the way from Pekan, several supporters of the former premier alleged that Najib has not been given a fair trial.
This follows an unsuccessful bid by Najib’s counsel to postpone proceedings by three to four months.
A supporter by the name of Hajar Radiah alleged that the former premier was not given a fair trial.
“We asked for a postponement of only four months, not even four years. Why didn’t they allow it?
“(And then the court chooses to) easily rule on the case, whose right is that?”
She then questioned if a conflict of interest could arise from Chief Justice Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat’s husband, Zamani Ibrahim, who was supposedly against the former premier.
“This is going against the legal ethics as a chief justice,” she said.
Earlier today, Malaysiakini reported that Najib sought to recuse Tengku Maimun based on information obtained a few days ago.
According to a copy of the affidavit in support of the recusal bid, Najib claimed to have found out on Aug 17 about a Facebook post allegedly made by Tengku Maimun’s husband, Zamani Ibrahim.
The former premier claimed that the post, dated May 11, 2018, had among others, allegedly expressed happiness at Najib being “dethroned” following the 14th general election that year.
The five-person bench chaired by Chief Justice Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat then dismissed the application to postpone the recusal bid hearing to tomorrow morning.
Meanwhile, another supporter, who wanted to be known as Raj, said they were not trying to condemn the judiciary but merely believed that Najib was not given the right to justice.
On July 28, 2020, the High Court in Kuala Lumpur found Najib guilty of one count of abuse of power, three counts of criminal breach of trust (CBT), and three money laundering charges.
However, trial judge Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali allowed the defence’s bid to stay the execution of the sentence of 12 years in jail and RM210 million fine, pending disposal of the appeal.
On Dec 8 last year, the Court of Appeal upheld the lower court’s ruling and dismissed Najib’s appeal.
The appellant also used to be SRC’s adviser emeritus and chairperson of the board of advisers of sovereign wealth fund 1MDB.
Both entities are fully owned by the Minister of Finance Incorporated (MOF Inc).
Initially a subsidiary of 1MDB, SRC was later wholly transferred to MOF Inc. - Mkini
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