KUALA LUMPUR, April 23 ― Datuk Seri Najib Razak's corruption trial over RM42 million from SRC International Sdn Bhd trial will extend past 5pm today after his defence team applied for a recess until 2.30pm.
High Court judge Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali allowed for the hearing to extend beyond the normal hours so that witness testimony scheduled for this morning may be delivered today.
Najib's lawyer, Wan Aizuddin Wan Mohammed, informed the court that the main defence team was still occupied with Najib's appeal in his bid to disqualify Datuk Seri Gopal Sri Ram as prosecutor in 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) cases.
“The the matter took longer than expected as the prosecution raised preliminary objection with the arguments taking two hours.
“The main argument only started at 11am. Under the circumstances, we seek at stand down to start the hearing later,” he told the court.
The matter is currently before the Court of Appeal in Putrajaya.
Ad hoc prosecutor Datuk V. Sithambaram did not object to the request as it was beyond control.
Mohd Nazlan then stated that the court was prepared to go beyond 5pm, to which both defence and prosecution did not object.
On December 21, Najib applied to disqualify Sri Ram from leading the prosecution of three of his cases — namely 25 charges of money-laundering and power abuse involving more than RM2 billion of 1MDB funds; six charges of criminal breach of trust over RM6.64 billion; and one charge of power abuse involving the alleged tampering of the auditor-general’s 1MDB audit report.
On March 1, the High Court dismissed Najib’s bid to disqualify Sri Ram as his prosecutor, finding that there was no evidence to show Sri Ram would be biased or that Najib would be denied a fair trial.
