KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 29 — Datuk Seri Najib Razak attempted an ex parte application to show cause for contempt of court against Malay Mail and Lim Kit Siang today, over an article the news publication wrote citing the DAP MP.

However, according to Najib’s lawyer Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, the High Court had ordered for the show cause papers to be "tweaked” instead, for not fulfilling the requirements.

"We went to see the judge, it was an ex parte matter, a show cause against Lim Kit Siang and Malay Mail reports.

"I cannot disclose much. We are going to appear before the judge on the date to be fixed, because the judge wants the papers to be tweaked a little bit,” he told reporters by the side.

An ex parte application is a request made to a court where only the party making the request is represented, while the other side is not given any notice.

Lawyer Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah leaves the Kuala Lumpur High Court November 29, 2019. — Picture by Shafwan Zaidon

Najib is trying to cite Malay Mail and Lim for contempt of court over a November 9 article titled "Kit Siang: High Court decision on Najib and Tanjung Piai by-election outcome will indicate where Malaysia headed towards” written by Emmanuel Santa Maria Chin.

Shafee claimed that the article and Lim were trying to pressure the court into deciding the outcome of the criminal case involving the former prime minister.

On November 11, the High Court ruled for Najib to enter his defence and answer to charges over RM42 million misappropriated from 1Malaysia Development Berhad’s (1MDB) former subsidiary SRC International Sdn Bhd.

High Court judge Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali then said the prosecution successfully proved prima facie against Najib, who is also Pekan MP, on all of his seven charges.

Out of the seven charges levelled against Najib, the Pekan MP is accused of committing three counts of criminal breach of trust over a total RM42 million of SRC International funds while entrusted with its control as the prime minister and finance minister then, and a separate charge under an anti-corruption law of abusing the same positions for self-gratification of the same RM42 million sum.

The remaining three of the seven charges are for allegedly money-laundering the same total sum of RM42 million.

On November 16, voters went to the ballot boxes for the Tanjung Piai by-election, which Barisan Nasional (BN) eventually won a with a whopping majority of 15,086 votes.