PUTRAJAYA (Oct 21): Former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak delivered an impassioned and defiant statement in the High Court on Tuesday, declaring that he was not asking for special treatment but only to be judged fairly, as the long-running 1Malaysia Development Bhd-Tanore (1MDB-Tanore) criminal trial moved into its final stages before judge Datuk Collin Lawrence Sequerah.
Presiding over the case, Sequerah had initially wanted Najib’s lawyer Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah to read out the statement on Najib’s behalf.
However, Shafee said that there had been precedent in previous cases where the accused had read statements to the court prior to submissions.
Najib was eventually allowed by Sequerah to read his statement after deputy public prosecutor Datuk Akram Ahmad Gharib said the prosecution had no objection to it.
“As a former prime minister, I am not asking for immunity — far from it,” Najib read in the courtroom here.
“I am only seeking equality — the right to be treated like any other individual who has come before the judicial system,” he said.
Najib said that the difference between the prosecution of a politician and a political prosecution “is not always noticeable”, but insisted that his trial had crossed that line.
He opened his statement with a series of rhetorical scenarios involving 1MDB senior officials, asking:
“Imagine a public official receiving RM100 million into their offshore accounts. Or when a public official won the bid for a Picasso painting at an auction, all while still earning a monthly salary from a public body? What would happen if a public official openly defied the Yang di-Pertuan Agong’s order?
“Who was that public official, and what would you think would have happened to them? That public official was not me. And about the consequences faced by those public officials? Nothing, because they are the witnesses testifying against me in this trial.”
Najib named several former 1MDB officials, including former general counsel Jasmine Loo Ai Swan, former chief executive officers Datuk Shahrol Azral Ibrahim Halmi and Mohd Hazem Abdul Rahman, former chief financial officer Azmi Tahir, and Najib’s former officer Datuk Amhari Efendi Nazaruddin, alleging that they were the ones involved in multimillion-dollar transfers and questionable decisions — yet none had been charged.
He described the prosecution’s witnesses as “pristine, 100% believable” in the eyes of the court, despite their own alleged misconduct, and claimed they were chosen “not for what they had to say, but for what they were willing to say”.
He said that these public officials had taken instructions from fugitive Low Taek Jho or Jho Low and had admitted in court to “carrying out Jho Low’s secret plans”.
“In addition to all that, these same public officials have admitted to carrying out Jho Low's secret plans and talking points through unofficial channels and have subsequently deleted most of them.
“In court, they asserted that whatever came from Jho Low originated from me, and that any misconduct they had committed was attributable to my purported instructions,” he said.
“Despite them going against the board's directions, taking unauthorised decisions, making unauthorised payments to the tune of billions, and accepting illicit rewards, this court could not find any reason to doubt them or their credibility as witnesses.
“Despite such stark revelations and confirmed misconduct, none of them has been charged. It’s as if breaking the law has no consequences,” he said.
“For as long as they could testify against me, nothing they could ever say, admit to, or even do, however questionable, shocking, or unbelievable, could affect their trustworthiness.”
In this trial, Najib is accused of four abuse of power and 21 money-laundering charges.
The trial continues.