KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 16 ― Former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak has filed an appeal with the Court of Appeal to continue his attempt to disqualify Datuk Seri Gopal Sri Ram as the lead prosecutor in several of his trials related to the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) scandal.

Najib’s lawyer, Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, confirmed today that the appeal has been filed, just a day after the High Court rejected Najib’s bid.

"Today we have filed a notice of appeal in relation to our application to request for Datuk Seri Sri Ram to be disqualified, because this application was dismissed in the High Court by the judge yesterday,” Shafee told reporters at the Kuala Lumpur court complex.

Shafee said that Najib filed the appeal as his lawyers felt that there is "overwhelming reason” and "strong” grounds to seek for Sri Ram’s disqualification.

Shafee argued that the first reason was that former attorney general Tan Sri Apandi Ali’s disclosure as cited by Najib to support his application was allegedly "not rebutted” but allegedly "in many ways was confirmed by Sri Ram”, with Shafee insisting that it would amount to misconduct by the prosecution.

The second reason cited by Shafee was that Sri Ram’s appointment to lead the prosecution of 1MDB case allegedly also involved an investigative role.

While noting that the prosecution said it was not involved in investigative work, Shafee went on to say that Najib’s lawyers had cited former attorney general Tan Sri Tommy Thomas’ recent book My Story: Justice in the Wilderness which allegedly said that prosecution officers had been involved in investigations into other matters.

Najib failed yesterday in his third attempt to have the court remove Sri Ram as his prosecutor in 1MDB-linked cases.

In his third attempt, Najib had asked for three court orders, namely a declaration that there is a conflict of interest between Sri Ram’s appointment as a senior public prosecutor and his continuous practice as a private lawyer, and a declaration that there was conflict of interest due to Sri Ram’s alleged showing of bias against and predetermined notions of Najib’s alleged guilt before he was charged, and for a court order to disqualify Sri Ram from acting for the prosecution in four 1MDB-linked trials against Najib.

The four trials are the power abuse and money-laundering trial involving over RM2 billion of 1MDB funds, Najib’s joint trial with former 1MDB CEO Arul Kanda Kandasamy over the alleged tampering of the federal audit report on 1MDB, Najib’s joint trial with former Treasury secretary-general Tan Sri Mohd Irwan Serigar Abdullah for alleged criminal breach of trust involving RM6.6 billion of government funds, and Najib’s three money-laundering charges involving RM27 million of former 1MDB subsidiary SRC International Sdn Bhd’s funds.

The prosecution had previously however said that Najib had failed to show a single prosecutorial misconduct by Sri Ram.

Yesterday, High Court judge Mohamed Zaini Mazlan rejected Najib’s third attempt, after ruling among other things that there was no basis for Najib’s apprehension that Sri Ram is biased against him and noting that Najib had not made any complaints over Sri Ram’s conduct in the trials against him. 

Among other things, Zaini had also ruled that there was no merit to Najib’s allegation that Sri Ram had been involved in investigations as there was no evidence to back such a claim that remains "purely hypothetical”, while noting that this same issue had been raised by Najib in his previous attempts in court to remove Sri Ram and that the courts had already decided on this point.

"It has been deliberated and decided. The decisions held by the other courts should also remain and not be regurgitated again,” Zaini said yesterday.

Zaini had also yesterday said it is the courts’ duty to ensure that a trial is conducted fairly in the interests of justice, and that the court will ultimately come to the aid of anyone treated unfairly if it ever comes to that.

Najib had previously mounted two other attempts to remove Sri Ram as prosecutor in his 1MDB-linked cases, one in the civil court and one in the criminal court.

Najib’s previous application via judicial review to disqualify Sri Ram was struck out by High Court judge Datuk Seri Mariana Yahya in August 2020 and later on his second application in the criminal courts to have Sri Ram removed from prosecuting his 1MDB-related cases was dismissed by High Court judge Collin Lawrence Sequerah, with both the Court of Appeal and Federal Court subsequently also dismissing the bid to disqualify Sri Ram.

In the Federal Court’s August 7, 2019 decision on Najib’s bid via the criminal courts, it had also ordered the prosecution to show to the defence Sri Ram’s appointment letter by the attorney general.