A lawyer to Najib Abdul Razak has confirmed that Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department (Law and Institutional Reform) Azalina Othman Said had sent them a letter affirming aspects of the MACC probe on judge Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali.
“We are unaware as to how these letters have made it into the public domain. But they are in any case authentic,” Farhan Shafee told Malaysiakini.
However, when contacted, Azalina declined to comment on the matter, saying questions should instead be posted to lawyer Mohamed Shafee Abdullah.
According to sources with knowledge of the matter, Shafee had written to Azalina asking her to confirm whether or not the MACC had found Nazlan to be in a conflict of interest when presiding over the SRC International case.
He also wanted to know whether the MACC found Nazlan had violated the Judges’ Code of Ethics.
Azalina, in her reply to Shafee on March 20, stated that his “queries are answered in the affirmative”.
Previously, Najib’s daughter Nooryana Najwa also posted an excerpt of a purported MACC letter to Chief Justice Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat stating that they found Nazlan had violated the Judge’s Code of Ethics.
The letter was dated Feb 20, four days before a Tengku Maimun-led bench ruled that the MACC’s probe on Nazlan had not followed protocol by not informing the chief justice beforehand.
Tengku Maimun – who read out the ruling – said while the Federal Constitution empowers criminal investigation agencies such as MACC to investigate sitting judges as well as allow the public prosecutor to institute criminal court proceedings against such judges, those powers must be exercised in good faith and in genuine cases.
This is important, she said, to ensure the judiciary is able to carry out its functions freely and independently from external influence.
The bench also observed the “curious” timing of the publicising of the probe done before Najib’s SRC appeal before the Federal Court last year.
Nazlan, when he was a High Court judge in 2020, sentenced Najib to 12 years in prison and RM210 million for corruption, abuse of power, and money laundering. – Malaysiakini