PUTRAJAYA: Datuk Seri Najib Razak was not a director or shadow director in SRC International Sdn Bhd to be found guilty of misappropriating RM42mil of the company’s funds, the Court of Appeal was told.
Judge did not err in SRC case, court told thestar.com.my - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from thestar.com.my Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
PUTRAJAYA: The prosecution in the SRC International Sdn Bhd case has defended the trial judge s grounds of judgment that led to the conviction of Datuk Seri Najib Razak, which it said came “under attack” by the defence.
Ad hoc prosecutor Datuk Seri V. Sithambaram told a three-man panel at the Court of Appeal that the defence, led by counsel Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, had made serious allegations against High Court judge Justice Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali.
He said the defence had, both inside and outside of court, submitted and commented that the judge was biased, saying that the judge was the second prosecutor in the case and hopelessly incompetent .
PUTRAJAYA: The Court of Appeal was told that large sums of money had entered into the bank accounts of Datuk Seri Najib Razak, but the former prime minister did not make enquiries to ask where the money came from.
Instead, the Pekan MP had “immediately utilised” the monies by issuing cheques for personal and political uses, moved millions between two companies, and had shopping sprees at Swiss luxury jeweller boutique De Grisogono in Italy and designer boutique Chanel in Honolulu in the United States.
(During the trial, the High Court was told that Najib had spent about RM3.3mil at De Grisogono to buy a gift meant for the wife of Qatar s former prime minister and bought a RM466,000 (US$130,625) Chanel watch for his wife Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor.)
PUTRAJAYA: Datuk Seri Najib Razak would have known the balance in his personal bank accounts due to the millions of ringgit in cheques that he had issued, the Court of Appeal heard.
Ad hoc prosecutor Datuk V. Sithambaram said it was unbelievable that Najib had operated a large multi-million account without knowing the balance.
“The value of the cheques issued makes it inevitable that the appellant had knowledge of the account balance. If I had millions in my account, I would check it daily, ” the prosecutor said in jest.
Sithambaram also said any suggestion of ignorance of the bank balance was evidence that the appellant blatantly attempted to hide his knowledge of the bank balances.