KUALA LUMPUR, June 5 — Datuk Seri Najib Razak will find out if he will be acquitted or convicted for the seven charges related to RM42 million from allegedly misappropriated from SRC International Sdn Bhd on July 28, just five days after his 67th birthday.

High Court Judge Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali, after listening to the final round of submissions by both the defence and prosecuting lawyers, revealed that he would be delivering his judgment next month.

“This court over the whole course of the trial has heard submissions by both the prosecution and the defence, who have both provided lengthy and extensive written submissions which run into over two thousand pages that will assist this court in ensuring and evaluating and determining if the prosecution has proved their case.

“I intend to deliver my judgment on the seven charges next month, on July 28, at 10am,” Mohd Nazlan said today.

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After announcing the date of his verdict, lawyers from both sides thanked Mohd Nazlan for the patience afforded to them during the more than 100 days of the trial that has taken place since it began last April.

Earlier, during final submissions, the defence set out to disprove the involvement of Najib in relation to the case, first distancing the former prime minister from having a direct hand in granting two government guarantees to SRC International in 2011 and 2012 amounting to some RM4 billion. 

Defence lawyer Harvinderjit Singh argued how the supposed RM42 million that was allegedly misappropriated from SRC International had no correlation with the RM4 billion that was loaned, pressing his point that the fund transfers into Najib’s account were instead carried out by virtue or instructions from fugitive financier Low Taek Jho, or Jho Low. 

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He submitted that there had been no connection established so far by the prosecution to be able to pin the offence on Najib, saying how such elements must be proven by evidence for crimes involving corruption and gratifications support the allegation. 

Lead defence lawyer Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah reasserted and added that both SRC International and AmBank, where Najib had the implicated bank accounts, were in a chaotic state at the material time. 

“Nobody seems to know who signed the relevant documents transferred to the bank, the prosecution did not resolve that doubt of who authorised the soft copy to be sent to the bank,” he said in reference to the transfer instructions that effected the funds into Najib’s account. 

Shafee argued that SRC International, as a company, had not mandated for any financial instructions concerning its funds to be carried by way of submitting soft copies of relevant documents, saying it rendered the transfers into Najib’s account illegal at the point it was performed as they were carried out without his and the company’s knowledge. 

“There is no truth that my client was involved, there is not one iota of evidence that shows he was involved in the transfers, either through himself or by instructing the two directors.

“No evidence led that has shown that my client had any connection with any one of them; not one but all three transactions which is the subject matter of this trial,” he said. 

Of the seven charges he was asked to enter his defence, Najib 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 of abusing the same positions for self-gratification of the same sum.

For the remaining three charges, the Pekan MP is accused of laundering RM42 million.