KUALA LUMPUR (Sept 15): Former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak and former Treasury secretary general Tan Sri Dr Mohd Irwan Serigar Abdullah’s criminal breach of trust (CBT) trial involving government funds of RM6.64 billion to pay International Petroleum Investment Company (IPIC) will begin on June 4, 2024.
This comes after deputy public prosecutor (DPP) Muhammad Saifuddin Hashim Musaimi informed the High Court at a case management that they were ready to set dates for the trial.
Judge Datuk Muhammad Jamil Hussin, after taking consideration of available dates, fixed 30 days across June and July for the trial.
There was intense speculation that the Attorney General’s Chambers (AGC) was deciding whether or not to drop the charges against the duo. However, the letter of representation was not brought up during the proceeding.
This comes after both men had previously filed a representation for the AGC to review the CBT case.
A letter of representation, in law, is a way for an accused to seek prosecutors to review the criminal case to either drop the charge(s) against him/her, or to reduce the charge(s).
Before the dates were set, Irwan’s lead counsel Datuk K Kumaraendran had asked for the case to start as soon as possible, preferably in early 2024.
According to the lawyer, his client's life has been affected since he was charged in October 2018.
“[This has] had an impact on my client. He’s unable to leave the country for five years. He has undergone psychological stress [with these charges]. He cannot proceed with his career advancement. With all these, I seek Your Lordship’s consideration.
“In my 50-year career as a lawyer, this is the longest pending case,” he said.
Earlier, Najib’s lawyer Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah said that Najib’s other criminal case — the 1Malaysia Development Bhd-Tanore (1MDB-Tanore) trial — will spill over to March 2024, thus he requested for the trial to start only in July.
The DPP also agreed with Shafee, and asked for a date in July, after next year’s Hari Raya period.
Shafee applies to determine veracity of leaked AGC's document, seeks to subpoena Tommy Thomas
Shafee then made an application before the judge over an alleged leaked 12-page internal memorandum, which went viral on social media recently, that was dated Sept 10, 2019 and addressed to former AG Tan Sri Tommy Thomas.
Shafee said that this memo was allegedly written by a senior DPP, Datuk Jamil Ariffin.
It was purportedly written by the IPIC prosecution team, which expressed concern over its apparent inability to build a strong prima facie case for the six charges levied against Najib and Irwan.
“We are making an application, so we can improve our defence. We [want] to ask our learned friend from the prosecution to say that the document exists and it’s genuine. That’s all — that this leaked document is true,” he said.
However, Kumaraendran told the judge that this is not the proper forum to bring up the application.
Shafee then told the judge that the defence would want to call Thomas to testify about the veracity of the memo.
“We need a confirmation. This will help with our defence. We want to call Tommy Thomas, as he was the first officer involved in the charges,” he said.
Speaking to the press after, Shafee said that the defence additionally wants to subpoena the seven DPPs and five investigation officers.
He said that if they are successful in proving that the memorandum is indeed authentic, they will proceed with a civil suit against Thomas.
“One of our defences is that this is an abuse of the process. If we are successful, we can continue with civil proceedings against those responsible, and Tommy Thomas for malicious prosecution and abuse of the process,” he said.
He said that Thomas went on to charge the duo, despite what the memo stated.
He said that the defence wants to know if the memo is genuine, but Saifuddin had remained mum during proceedings.
In October 2018, Najib and Irwan pleaded not guilty to six charges of CBT amounting to RM6.64 billion in government funds involving payments to IPIC.
Najib and Irwan were jointly accused of committing all the offences at the Finance Ministry Complex, Putrajaya between Dec 21, 2016 and Dec 18, 2017.
They were charged under Section 409 of the Penal Code, read together with Section 34 of the same code, which provides for a maximum of 20 years in jail and whipping, as well as a fine upon conviction.