KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 17 — Judge Datuk Collin Lawrence Sequerah will decide tomorrow whether to remove himself as the trial judge for former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) trial, after it emerged that 1MDB’s former in-house lawyer Jasmine Loo had worked in the same law firm as him more than a decade ago.
This afternoon, Sequerah said: “I will deliver my decision on recusal tomorrow morning.”
On August 14, Najib applied to remove Sequerah from hearing the 1MDB trial, with the ultimate aim of getting acquitted from the trial, or to alternatively have the trial be heard afresh from the start or be continued before a different High Court judge.
Earlier today, Sequerah heard arguments from both Najib’s lawyer and the prosecution on whether he should be recused from the 1MDB trial over the fact that he and Loo had previously worked in the law firm Zain & Co.
Sequerah was a legal assistant in Zain & Co from August 1, 1996 to December 31, 2000, and became a partner there from January 1, 2001 to June 19, 2014. Sequerah joined the judiciary when he was appointed as a judicial commissioner on June 20, 2014 and was elevated to be a High Court judge in January 2017 and as a Court of Appeal judge in January this year.
Loo was a legal assistant in the same law firm from January 1998 to December 31, 2003, and became a partner from January 1, 2004 to December 31, 2008.
Najib’s lead defence lawyer Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah today claimed that the prosecution has both a legal duty and a moral duty to call Loo — who was recently arrested by the Malaysian authorities upon her return to the country — as a prosecution witness in Najib’s 1MDB trial as this is a public interest case.
Shafee argued that there is a “real danger of bias” if Sequerah continues to hear the 1MDB trial, due to Sequerah’s and Loo’s relationship allegedly went beyond being mere acquaintances since they were former partners in the same law firm.
Shafee argued that Sequerah should have disclosed his previous work ties with Loo at the start of this trial and especially after her name was first mentioned in this trial by prosecution witnesses, claiming that their working in the same law firm gives rise to a conflict of interest as the judge would have to decide on matters such as whether Loo is a credible witness.
Even if Loo is not called in as a prosecution witness, Shafee claimed that there would still be a conflict of interest as Sequerah would have to make an assessment on evidence relating to Loo in the 1MDB trial and on documents which she had prepared for 1MDB. Shafee claimed that Loo was the proxy and partner of Low Taek Jho and that they had acted in conspiracy.
At one point, Shafee denied that Najib was “judge-shopping” by seeking to recuse Sequerah after having gone through more than 167 days of hearing, saying: “But Yang Arif will know that argument will fall because we have done 167 days before Yang Arif, what kind of judge-shopping do we want to do? We would be idiots to judge shop after suffering 167 days.”
Deputy public prosecutor Kamal Baharin Omar however argued that there is no real danger of bias by Sequerah if the judge continues to hear the case, and that the judge need not recuse himself from the 1MDB trial.
Kamal Baharin said it is Najib who has the burden of proving the facts that would show there is a real danger of bias, but said Najib had failed to show evidence to prove his allegation of such danger of bias by Sequerah.
Kamal Baharin argued that the timing of Sequerah’s disclosure on July 27 of his past employment history with Loo being in the same law firm was right and acceptable in law, as this was due to a change in circumstances. The prospects of Loo potentially becoming a witness in the 1MDB trial only arose recently, as she had previously been a fugitive who was away from Malaysia throughout the years the trial was conducted.
Kamal Baharin said the only evidence provided by Najib was that Sequerah and Loo were in the same law firm back in 2008, noting that there has been a gap with Sequerah and Loo had left the firm in 2014 and 2008 respectively.
He also said there is no evidence that Zain & Co had ever handled 1MDB matters during the time that Loo and Sequerah were working in the law firm, and that there is no personal friendship and on special relationship between the two who were merely partners working in the same law firm. He also said Zain & Co is not a small law firm.
Kamal Baharin said there was also no evidence that Sequerah had any prior involvement in 1MDB, noting that other judges who had recused themselves from civil lawsuits involving 1MDB and 1MDB’s former subsidiary SRC International Bhd did not so because the law firms they were working in had handled these companies’ matters — even though those judges did not personally handle those cases.
He argued that there was no connection between issues in the 1MDB trial and the past work relationship between Sequerah and his former partner Loo in that law firm.
Najib was present in court today, while his wife Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor was also seen in court.
Former Bank Negara Malaysia governor Tan Sri Zeti Akhtar Aziz, who is the 46th prosecution witness in the trial, was present in the court complex this morning to standby to testify.
But the hearing of the arguments over the recusal application took the whole day, and Zeti was not called to testify today.
