Jailed former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak will step onto the witness stand today to defend himself against 25 criminal charges in the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) trial.
This includes over US$681 million (RM2.08 billion) of alleged 1MDB funds that entered his personal AmIslamic bank account.
In case you are confused, Najib was jailed because he was convicted in the SRC RM42 million case; this 1MDB trial is a separate case that is still going on, so anything the High Court decides in the 1MDB trial will not change his status as a prisoner.
Najib’s lawyer, Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, informed trial judge Collin Lawrence Sequerah this morning at the onset of Najib taking the witness stand that his client is one of the best speakers and readers.
Sequerah was seeking clarification on how long Najib would take to read out the full defence statement, which was broken into two volumes.
The judge was wondering whether the reading out of the voluminous witness statement could be expedited, which Shafee said his client would take note of.
Najib then began reading out the first five pages of his written witness statement, which covered his birth at Kuala Lipis, Pahang on July 23, 1953, and part of his rise into his political career up to his rise to prime minister on April 3, 2009.
The former finance minister then managed to reach the part about him not being the first premier to hold both the premiership and finance portfolio.
Najib pointed out that Malaysia’s first prime minister Tunku Abdul Rahman held both portfolios from 1957 to 1959 and later from 1960 to 1962, the accused’s own late father Abdul Razak Hussein held both posts from 1970 to 1976, the former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad briefly assumed the finance portfolio in 1990s, and ex-premier Abdullah Ahmad Badawi during his own administration.
“The dual roles allow the prime minister to oversee and coordinate economic and fiscal policies, and the practice continues until today with the prime minister,” Najib said in reference to Anwar Ibrahim.
At this juncture, Shafee asked Najib whether this was an amendment to the witness statement, and the accused replied it was an amendment which was not reflected in the written witness statement.
Shafee then asked for a brief adjournment of the trial so that the defence team could check the witness statement copies.
The lawyer earlier told the court that they tried their best to get Najib’s written witness statement done within a month plus in light of circumstances of trying to liaise with the Kajang Prison Department to allow the defence team to meet the accused and record his witness statement.
Sequerah then stood down proceedings until 2pm this afternoon.
During this morning’s proceedings, Shafee also informed the judge that the defence team would be calling another 20 witnesses, who include experts.
Dressed in a blue suit with a blue tie, Najib is seen using a cane as he slowly walks out of the witness box.