KUALA LUMPUR (Aug 29): The prosecution in former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s 1Malaysia Development Bhd-Tanore (1MDB-Tanore) trial informed the High Court here that it has four more witnesses to call, including possibly Jasmine Loo Ai Swan, before it can wrap up its side of the trial, which has been ongoing for four years as of this month.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Ahmad Akram Gharib informed High Court judge Datuk Collin Lawrence Sequerah that once the current witness, former Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) governor Tan Sri Dr Zeti Akhtar Aziz, is done with her time on the stand, they will call a BNM analyst, two investigating officers from the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC), and potentially recently arrested fugitive Loo, which would then conclude the prosecution's case.

Akram told Sequerah that the prosecution had yet to decide whether Loo, a former 1MDB general counsel who is currently under police custody, would be called to testify.

Separately, Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, who is Najib’s lead defence lawyer, halted his cross-examination of Zeti midway. He requested that the prosecution obtain a witness statement from former AmBank group managing director Ashok Ramamurthy, saying that there had been contradictions between Zeti’s testimony and that of Ashok’s predecessor Cheah Tek Kuang. Cheah had testified previously in the trial.

Akram, however, pointed out that Ashok is not one of the prosecution's witnesses, and that there is no intention to call him, as his statement was never recorded by the MACC in this case.

Ashok currently resides in Australia.

Before that, Shafee had made an application with Sequerah to ask for the alleged statement made by Ashok, which he claimed was recorded by the MACC in Singapore.

Shafee told the judge that he wanted to put the MACC investigating officer on the stand to find out more about such a statement, and whether it was indeed recorded.

Until the application to call the investigation officer is done with, Zeti will have to wait for her cross-examination by Shafee to be concluded.

Sequerah then released Zeti from the stand, but informed her that she would have to come back to complete her cross-examination once the application is dealt with.

Najib is on trial on four counts of abuse of power and 21 counts of money laundering involving RM2.28 billion of 1MDB funds.

The trial before Sequerah continues on Wednesday.

The Edge is covering the trial live here.

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