1MDB TRIAL | Najib Abdul Razak’s lead defence counsel has questioned why several documents obtained via Mutual Legal Assistance (MLA) from two countries were not provided to the defence team.
Muhammad Shafee Abdullah raised this during cross-examination of MACC investigating officer Nur Aida Arifin in the former prime minister’s RM2.27 billion 1MDB corruption trial.
The lawyer put in the question when Aida said that some parts of the trove of documents from Hong Kong and Switzerland were not tendered in court as they were not relevant to her investigation.
The 49th prosecution witness explained that the ones tendered in court were the ones that prosecutors deemed relevant in their case against Najib.
Shafee: Why don’t you provide the rest to the defence so the defence can decide whether they are relevant to the defence or not?
Aida: When I looked at the documents, for me they were not relevant, and I gave the briefing to the prosecution team in this case, and after the prosecution perused it, and suggested the ones to be tendered in court.
When judge Collin Lawrence Sequerah told the defence team that it was the prosecutors who decided on which documents to tender and not Aida, Shafee answered he needed to put in the cross-examination against the MACC officer as deputy public prosecutor Ahmad Akram Gharib is not in the witness box.
Akram is part of the prosecution team.
During further questioning by Shafee, Aida explained that the documents were not tendered in court and not provided to the defence team as they were regarded as irrelevant to the case.
Documents from 4 countries
Since Friday last week, Shafee has cross-examined Aida over the authenticity of over a thousand documentary evidence obtained from four countries.
The countries include Barbados, Singapore, Hong Kong and Switzerland, from which prosecutors claimed 1MDB funds were funnelled in a convoluted monetary trail.
Najib is on trial for four counts of abuse of power and 21 counts of money laundering involving RM2.27 billion from 1MDB.
For the four abuse of power charges, the former Pekan MP is alleged to have committed the offences at AmIslamic Bank Bhd’s Jalan Raja Chulan branch in Bukit Ceylon, Kuala Lumpur, between Feb 24, 2011, and Dec 19, 2014.
On the 21 money laundering counts, Najib is purported to have committed the offences at the same bank between March 22, 2013, and Aug 30, 2013. - Mkini
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.