Najib Abdul Razak is hoping for a retrial over the RM42 million SRC corruption case.
This followed his plan to file an application for fresh evidence in his appeal, namely that Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali should not have heard the SRC case as the then Kuala Lumpur High Court judge.
Najib’s lead defence counsel Muhammad Shafee Abdullah today said the application would be to adduce fresh evidence related to Nazlan’s purported conflict of interest.
Yesterday, Shafee reportedly claimed Nazlan should have recused himself from hearing the SRC trial against Najib, as the judge used to be a general counsel of Maybank.
This was allegedly because Nazlan’s tenure with Maybank coincided with the time when the commercial bank issued a loan to 1MDB. SRC was a subsidiary of the sovereign wealth fund.
“Nazlan was involved in the process of the application of the loan.
“He should have disclosed all this and should not have heard the case. Remember the earlier judge was removed just because his brother was the chairman of an Umno division,” Shafee said.
Nazlan, who was recently elevated to a Court of Appeal judge, had convicted and sentenced Najib over the RM42 million SRC International corruption case in July 2020.
It was reported yesterday that Shafee claimed to have discovered Nazlan’s past role in Maybank just a few days ago.
The defence will file the fresh evidence bid in two days’ time.
“There is a possible blunder of prosecution, we will see if the court can acquit and quash all the charges,” Shafee said.
Shafee said if the Federal Court allows the additional evidence related to Nazlan’s past role in Maybank, then he expressed hope that this ultimately could lead to a rehearing of the SRC case.
“We are hoping for a retrial (of the SRC case),” Shafee told the media during a press conference at the Palace of Justice in Putrajaya today.
Additionally, the Federal Court today is hearing Najib’s bid to adduce fresh evidence for his main SRC appeal, namely information such as the banking information of the family of former Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) governor Zeti Akhtar Aziz.
The apex court has yet to fix a hearing date for Najib’s main appeal to overturn his conviction and sentencing in the SRC corruption case.