KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 5 — Imprisoned former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak's legal team is ready for the Federal Court's January 19 hearing of his bid to challenge his conviction and jailing over the misappropriation of SRC International Sdn Bhd's RM42 million, his lead defence lawyer said.
Najib's lawyer Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah said the January 19 review bid at the Federal Court is a separate matter from his client's complaint which was filed just today with the United Nations Human Rights Council Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UNWGAD).
"No, this has nothing to do with the 19th. As far as we are concerned, we can go ahead, but we have been told there is a problem with the assembling of quorum because there's not enough judges, so 19th can go on, 20th and 26th cannot go on. As you know this is an argument that will take more than three days, but we will see.
"We are ready to go on January 19," he told reporters at a press conference at his office here.
Shafee was responding to questions on whether Najib would use the UN complaint — filed just today which is more than four months since his August 23, 2022 jailing — to postpone the January 19 hearing. (The Federal Court had on October 21, 2022 fixed January 19, January 20 and January 26 as the hearing dates for the SRC review.)
Shafee said Najib had requested for a new panel of seven Federal Court judges to hear the review, but claimed that there are only six judges in the Federal Court who were not part of the original panel — of five Federal Court judges — which had decided to uphold Najib's SRC conviction.
Shafee initially hinted at uncertainty over whether Najib's SRC review could proceed for hearing over the scheduled dates (including January 20 and January 26) due to the number of Federal Court judges available for the new panel.
But he later said Najib's lawyers would be fine with a fresh panel of five Federal Court judges.
"So chances are it would be five, we would be alright with five provided they are Federal Court and not taken from the Court of Appeal to sit on an ad hoc basis," he said.
Najib's lawyers were required to file their submissions by yesterday for the SRC review on January 19, but Shafee confirmed that this has yet to be filed and that Najib's lawyers had two days ago written to the Federal Court to ask for an extension of the filing deadline until next Monday (January 9).
"We have asked for extension until Monday, simply because yesterday and the day before yesterday, we were busy filing two election petitions," he said, confirming that the courts have yet to reply.
Asked if failure to file the submissions by the deadline or failure to secure an extension of the filing deadline would cause any delays to the January 19 SRC review hearing, Shafee disagreed and suggested the Federal Court would have sufficient time to read the submissions before the hearing if it is filed by January 9.
Shafee also viewed Najib as having exhausted all his legal avenues for appeals in Malaysia's courts, after having failed in the appeals in the SRC case.
The High Court had on July 28, 2020 found Najib guilty in the SRC case, and Najib later lost in his appeals twice in unanimous decisions at the Court of Appeal on December 8, 2021 and at the Federal Court on August 23, 2022.
The Federal Court had dismissed Najib's final appeal against his conviction in the criminal case over the misappropriation of SRC's RM42 million.
The Federal Court also maintained a 12-year jail sentence and RM210 million fine against Najib in the SRC case, which resulted in the former Umno president being imprisoned the same day on August 23 since he had failed in his final appeal.
The Federal Court is the highest court in Malaysia, with Shafee confirming that the UN working group is merely advisory in nature.
Shafee said however that Malaysia being a member of the UN should follow any advice if given by a UN advisory body.
Najib today via his lawyers filed a complaint with the UN working group, with Shafee saying that the UN group could call on the Malaysian government to release Najib from prison or grant him a retrial of the SRC case, if the UN group felt the trial was unfair.
