The prosecution is asking the Federal Court to throw out Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s application to nullify or cancel the entire trial where he was found guilty of the misappropriation of RM42 million of SRC International Sdn Bhd’s funds.
In an affidavit filed today by the SRC prosecution team’s deputy public prosecutor Mohd Ashrof Adrin Kamarul, the prosecution said judge Datuk Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali — who had heard the SRC trial and found Najib guilty — did not have any conflict of interest.
Najib had claimed that the judge’s previous roles in Maybank had resulted in a conflict of interest and that the SRC trial should be nullified or even ordered to go for a retrial.
But the prosecution today said that Najib’s allegations of conflict of interest by the judge is “baseless”, stressing that Najib had “not shown any real or imagined conflict of interest on the part of Justice Nazlan when he heard the SRC trial”.
“The applicant knew of Justice Nazlan’s position in Maybank at all material times during the trial and took no objection to him presiding over the SRC trial,” Ashrof said in his affidavit, referring to Najib as the applicant.
While Nazlan had heard Najib’s SRC trial at the High Court and found him guilty in July 2020 and while Najib had in December 2021 lost his appeal and filed his final appeal in the Federal Court the same month, it was only on June 7 this year that Najib had filed this application to add on purported new evidence in relation to Nazlan with the ultimate goal of seeking to nullify the trial.
The Federal Court had as early as April 29 notified both Najib’s lawyers and the prosecution that it will be hearing his SRC appeal over 10 days from August 15 to August 19, and from August 22 to August 26.
Najib’s SRC appeal at the Federal Court will be his final appeal against his conviction and sentencing to RM210 million fine and 12 years’ jail.
Although Najib claimed to have recently discovered Nazlan’s past positions in Maybank before the latter became a judge, Ashrof pointed out that these were actually public knowledge and argued that it was actually known by Najib since the start of the trial in 2019. – MMO