KUALA LUMPUR (Dec 19): Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor has pronounced the court’s decision to acquit her of all 17 charges in her money-laundering and tax evasion case as “justice”.
Speaking to the press following the court’s decision on Thursday, she expressed her gratitude to God, her lawyers and the High Court judge K Muniandy.
“I feel very grateful and thank God, everything is over. Today, we have received a full acquittal and I would like to thank all my lawyers who have worked hard since day one. They have told me that there is no basis for all these charges but you’ll never know.
“And I also want to thank the judge who made the right decision and this is what I call justice. This is the kind of justice that everybody should have. You should not play around with justice. Not only to us but to the public, to the masses. That’s all I want to say now,” she said.
Rosmah, who turned 73 on Dec 10, also said that this was not just a belated birthday gift for her but also for her imprisoned husband, former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak.
In this case, Rosmah is represented by a team of lawyers including Datuk Firoz Hussein Ahmad Jamaluddin, Amer Hamzah Arshad, Rajivan Nambiar and Reza Rahim, among others. The prosecution team is lead by Ahmad Akram Gharib, who took over following the late Datuk Seri Gopal Sri Ram’s passing.
Earlier, the High Court had allowed Rosmah’s application to strike out the charges, and used its inherent jurisdiction to grant her a full acquittal.
The court ruled that the charges were bad in law. In relation to the money-laundering charges, Muniandy said they did not specify the key elements of a money-laundering offence. In gist, he said a money-laundering offence needs to identify proceeds of an unlawful activity and transactions which show “placement, layering and integration”.
As for the tax evasion charges, the court said there was an overlap with the first 12 charges, which accounts for multiplicity.
Muniandy also said that failure to file a tax return is only a punishable offence once all avenues under the Income Tax Act 1967 have been exhausted. This was not done in Rosmah’s case.
He also noted the various postponements in the case since 2019.
The prosecution has said that they will be appealing the decision. It has to be noted that the trial for this case has already begun with two witnesses taking the stand. Rosmah then filed the application to strike out the charges.
It has to be noted that Rosmah still has a pending appeal involving the graft pertaining to the RM1.25 billion solar hybrid project for 369 rural schools in Sarawak.
She is appealing her guilty conviction and of 10 years’ imprisonment, and fined a whopping RM970 million. The merits of this main case will be heard at a later date.
The appellate court will first hear Rosmah’s appeal against her failed application to recuse judge Mohamed Zaini Mazlan, who presided over the case. The hearing has been set for March.