PUTRAJAYA, March 12 — The trial judge hearing former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s RM2 billion 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) case today urged the latter’s lawyers to identify more hearing dates, as the case has already been going on for six years.
Trial judge Datuk Collin Lawrence Sequerah said he was “not asking for the impossible” but merely wanted cooperation from both Najib’s lawyers and the prosecution to help bring the 1MDB trial to a conclusion by getting more hearing dates in the schedule.
Just like any other trial, the court and lawyers from both sides would have to find common dates where they are all available and not handling any other court cases.
But Najib’s lead defence lawyer Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah today told the High Court that he has difficulty finding such additional dates for the 1MDB trial, as there are clashes or overlapping dates with other cases his legal team is handling at the Court of Appeal and Federal Court.
Sequerah then said: “Don’t know whether we need to resort to some desperate measures like we did the last time.”
While Sequerah did not elaborate on these possible measures to help the 1MDB trial progress further, the High Court had last year heard the case on several Saturdays.
“But surely there must come a point in time when there’s light at the end of the tunnel,” the judge remarked.
The judge also referred to the saying when a case is said to be at its “tail end” or final part, remarking: “But sometimes the tail is very long.”
The judge said the 1MDB trial could not be prolonged indefinitely, and asked for more court dates before July and also wanted replacement dates for some of the hearing dates that had been lost.
Shafee then said he aims to finish calling in all of Najib’s defence witnesses for the 1MDB trial before he goes on his annual break in July.
“I’ve informed Yang Arif we would like to finish, at least closing the case before — we are trying to finish it before the break, my yearly break. But it depends on the circumstances, but that is our target,” he said, with the 1MDB trial then continuing.
Even before today, the judge had in recent weeks repeatedly asked lawyers to identify additional hearing dates.
Currently, the 1MDB trial has scheduled hearing dates this month, in April to June, and in August to November.
Najib was charged in September 2018 and his 1MDB trial began on August 28, 2019, but there were disruptions to the trial over the years due to various reasons — such as the Covid-19 pandemic and overlap in court dates with Najib’s other criminal trials.
The prosecution had brought in 50 prosecution witnesses and multiple banking documents over 235 days of trial until May 30 last year, and the High Court on October 30 last year ordered Najib to enter his defence.
Najib began his defence in the 1MDB trial on December 2 last year by testifying as the first defence witness and has so far already brought 13 other defence witnesses to the court.
On January 24, after the first two defence witnesses had finished testifying, Shafee reportedly said Najib’s legal team planned to call 25 more defence witnesses for the 1MDB trial.
The 1MDB trial resumes tomorrow, with Najib’s lawyers to continue asking questions to 11th defence witness Senior Assistant Commissioner R. Rajagopal.
