KUALA LUMPUR, April 29 — The High Court here today dismissed former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s application to challenge the seven charges he is facing over RM42 million from 1MDB-linked company’s funds.
High Court Judge Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali, when reading out his judgment, disagreed that the charges should be deemed “defective in form and substance” and an abuse of court process.
Mohd Nazlan said he did not concur with the submission that there was a requirement for the prosecutors to specify the charges or these could be interpreted as defective.
‘The argument that the charges are bad in law, defective in form and substance and that they constitute an abuse of Court process is unsustainable.
“And this is quite apart from the fact that the defence had in fact previously agreed to the seven charges to be jointly tried when the three AMLA (Anti Money Laundering Act) charges were preferred in August last year,” he said in his judgement this morning.
In his application, Najib sought for all the seven charges — comprising alleged abuse of position, criminal breach of trust (CBT), money-laundering — to be stayed or quashed unless amended.
He was also seeking for the trial to be suspended until there is final decision on his challenge against the charges.
Judge Mohd Nazlan in his judgement today also said he was of the view that there was no requirement for the specification of the mode of committing CBT, saying it was the duty of the prosecution to prove each of the charges beyond reasonable doubt and for the court to evaluate the veracity of the evidence.
On Najib’s appeal that the CBT and charges under the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) Act were similar, Mohd Nazlan disagreed and said the charges are two distinct and separate offences.
“There is no article impediment or conceptual through the joint trial of the charges under CBT which is under the Penal Code and the offences under the MACC Act,” he added.
