1MDB trial on pause again as Najib’s MySejahtera still ‘yellow’, judge decides against hybrid mode for now

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 14 — Former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) trial was again unable to proceed today, as his MySejahtera status is still “yellow”.

This means the accused cannot enter the court building for the trial to go on.

Trial judge Datuk Collin Lawrence Sequerah decided not to use the hybrid method, which would entail having Najib join the proceedings on video conference while the rest of the court — meaning the judge, lawyers and witnesses — are physically in the courtroom.

Instead, Sequerah ruled to have the trial continue this Thursday, which is when Najib’s MySejahtera status is expected to return to the “blue” or “low-risk” status.

The 1MDB trial was scheduled to go on for four days from this Monday to this Thursday, but three days of hearing would be lost, with Thursday being potentially the only day of hearing due to Najib’s MySejahtera status.

This morning, Najib’s lawyer Datuk Hariharan Tara Singh informed the High Court that both his client and lead defence lawyer, Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, still had MySejahtera statuses that were not “blue” in colour.

“Datuk Seri Najib’s MySejahtera did indicate it is casual contact, my client is at the carpark as he is under the category of casual contact, he is not allowed to enter the court premises.

“Whereas Tan Sri Shafee’s MySejahtera also indicates casual contact, but slightly different. Shafee is orange in colour, whereas Datuk Seri Najib is yellow. 

“The additional thing in Tan Sri Shafee is there is a Home Surveillance Order, the only odd thing in the Home Surveillance Order, it says he is quarantined from December 14 to 20. That is probably because he updated the status today,” he said when giving updates on the latest MySejahtera status for both Najib and Shafee.

The blue status refers to the “low-risk” classification, while the yellow status is for “casual contacts with no symptoms” or “persons under surveillance”, and the orange status refers to the classifications of “casual contacts with symptoms”, “close contacts” and “suspected cases”, while the red status is for confirmed Covid-19 cases.

However, Hariharan indicated that the 1MDB trial would likely be able to continue on this Thursday.

“But the position is that both of them, Datuk Seri Najib and Tan Sri Shafee were in contact with Tan Sri Shafee’s son Muhammad Farhan on December 6, and the 10 days’ quarantine period would expire tomorrow on the 15th. Yang Arif, if I may suggest, that the matter proceeds on the 16th Thursday,” he said.

The lawyer then suggested that the 1MDB trial take on four additional hearing days in January to replace the three hearing days that had been lost this week, and also just in case the December 16 hearing cannot go on since it is very close to the 10-day quarantine period.

The High Court then added on the four additional hearing dates of January 5, 6, 26 and 27, which were dates that had already been agreed to between both the prosecution and Najib’s lawyers.

While tomorrow had also been scheduled for the 1MDB trial, the judge decided to have the trial only resume on Thursday in light of the situation regarding Najib’s and Shafee’s MySejahtera status.

“I think this is what we will do, we will meet on Thursday in the confident expectation and hope that this case will continue. 

“I suppose today if the status is yellow and orange respectively, they can’t enter the court, there is nothing that can be done, so we will meet again on Thursday. And Thursday will be the cross-examination of the two witnesses,” the judge said.

The prosecution confirmed the two prosecution witnesses are present today.

The judge also decided against the prosecution’s application yesterday to continue the 1MDB trial using a hybrid manner, but said this option would not be ruled out for the future.

“With respect to the prosecution’s application to do hybrid hearing, after considering the parties’ oral submissions and reflecting upon the matter, for now, I decide against proceeding by way of hybrid proceedings. I will not rule it out for some time in the future,” the judge said briefly.

Earlier this morning at around 9.03am, Najib was seen showing his MySejahtera status to court staff. He later waited in his car and his car was seen leaving the court complex after the end of today’s 1MDB proceedings.

Today is the second day that the 1MDB trial has been disrupted due to the MySejahtera status of Najib and Shafee not being “blue”. Both had tested negative through a RT-PCR test and the rapid saliva test kits in recent days.

The Kuala Lumpur court complex only allows those with blue status in their MySejahtera to enter.

Based on the judiciary’s standard operating procedures to prevent Covid-19 that has been applicable to all courts throughout Malaysia since January 27 this year, those who are not allowed to be in court include those who have symptoms, have close contact with Covid-19 cases, are categorised as Person Under Investigation (PUI) or Person Under Surveillance (PUS), or have undergone a Covid-19 swab but have yet to receive their test results.

The trial was initially scheduled this week for the cross-examination of two prosecution witnesses, namely former 1MDB chief financial officer Azmi Tahir and former 1MDB director Tan Sri Ismee Ismail.