KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 30 — Former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s trial for corruption and money laundering involving 1Malaysia Development Berhad’s (1MDB) RM2.27 billion funds will continue as the High Court today ordered him to defend himself in this case.

Trial judge Datuk Collin Lawrence Sequerah said the prosecution had succeeded in proving a prima facie case for all 25 charges in the 1MDB trial against Najib.

This means the former finance minister has to continue to face all the 25 charges.

The 71-year-old Najib was given three choices: to remain silent; become his own defence witness and give his statement under oath from the witness stand; or give an unsworn statement from the dock.

He chose to testify from the witness stand for all four power abuse charges as well as for all 21 money-laundering charges in the 1MDB trial.

Najib was charged six years ago in September 2018 with four counts of power abuse and 21 money-laundering charges in relation to 1MDB’s RM2.27 billion, including over RM2 billion which was alleged to have entered his personal bank accounts.

Najib is currently a prisoner, as he was convicted in a separate trial over ex-1MDB unit SRC International Sdn Bhd’s RM42 million.

His 12-year jail term and RM210 million fine in that SRC case was reduced to six years’ jail and RM50 million fine by the Federal Territories Pardons Board earlier this year.

Any outcomes in Najib’s 1MDB trial will not affect his jail term and fine in the SRC case, as both cases are two different court cases.

At around 8am, at least 50 of Najib’s supporters were seen gathering outside the court complex here, and were heard shouting "Bebas Bossku!” briefly.

While the trial judge was reading out the judgment, Najib’s daughter Nooryana Najwa, and two of his sons, Datuk Mohamad Nizar, Datuk Mohd Nazifuddin were seen in the public gallery in the packed courtroom.

The 1MDB trial was initially scheduled to continue on November 18 until November 22, but Najib’s lawyers Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah and Tania Scivetti requested for additional time to be given to the defence team, and suggested hearing resume on December 2.

Scivetti said the legal team would need to visit Najib in prison to get his instructions and to draft his witness statement; adding that they also need time to interview the other witnesses who will be testifying after their client.

Shafee said that it would be a "cumbersome” process as Najib is currently in prison and his lawyers could not bring all the documents there, and would have to split the process of preparing Najib’s witness statement into several sessions.

As the prosecution indicated it has no objection to the defence’s request for extra time before Najib begins his defence, the trial judge allowed the request to continue the trial on December 2 instead. The judge also said the five hearing dates in November will have to be replaced with other dates.

The 1MDB trial now has 97 hearing dates scheduled from December 2 this year until November 2025, with trial dates for every month in this period except for July next year.

Previously, the prosecution said it would offer 49 witnesses to Najib if he was called to enter his defence.

Najib’s lawyers today did not say in court how many defence witnesses they would call, but Shafee later told the media that the plan is to call in at least 11 defence witnesses.

What the High Court said today

In delivering the High Court’s decision today, the trial judge read out his detailed key findings for nearly two hours.

In dealing with the preliminary issues raised by Najib’s lawyers in the 1MDB trial, the judge rejected the defence’s argument that the 25 charges against Najib were defective, duplicitous, ambiguous, or bad in law.

Instead, the judge said all 25 charges had fulfilled the required legal criteria and did not prejudice Najib.

The judge also said the prosecution’s documents obtained from countries such as Barbados, Singapore and Switzerland in this trial can be admitted as evidence in court based on the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission Act, and said this is a separate matter from the weight to be given to these documents as evidence.

As for Najib’s claim of multiple prosecution witnesses having purportedly given hearsay evidence about their verbal communication on 1MDB affairs with individuals who cannot be found such as fugitive Low Taek Jho, the judge said these witnesses’ testimony can be admitted as evidence in court as they fall within the exception to the hearsay rule.

While Najib’s lawyers’ arguments were based on the claim that their client is a victim and scapegoat of a scheme by some prosecution witnesses to defraud 1MDB, the judge however found these key prosecution witnesses to be credible and said they are not accomplices and had no motive to frame Najib.

The judge also pointed out that these prosecution witnesses are not the ones on trial, and also dismissed Najib’s claim that there was a shoddy or biased investigation in the 1MDB case.

The judge also said the court’s duty at this stage is to evaluate the credibility and reliability of the prosecution’s evidence to decide whether the elements of the charges against Najib have been established, based on Section 180 of the Criminal Procedure Code.

After having dealt with the preliminary issues, the judge cited the prosecution’s evidence in the 1MDB trial before ruling that the elements or ingredients of all 25 charges have been shown and would require Najib to enter defence.

For the four power abuse charges, the judge cited the prosecution’s evidence and witnesses’ testimonies on events such as Low having passed his mobile phone to then 1MDB chairman Tan Sri Mohd Bakke Salleh with Najib on the line on September 26, 2009 just before a 1MDB board meeting on September 26, 2009 started.

The judge also said funds belonging to 1MDB and its related companies can be traced and shown to have entered Najib’s personal bank account, based on the money trail in this case.

Among other things, the judge noted that despite publicity about the 1MDB scandal by 2015, Najib’s special officer Datuk Amhari Efendi Nazaruddin testified that he did not receive instructions from the then prime minister to lodge any reports with authorities.

The judge also said bankers who testified as prosecution witnesses had said Najib "had never raised enquiries about funds deposited in his AmIslamic bank accounts”.

The judge said 1MDB’s former CEO Datuk Shahrol Azral Ibrahim Halmi had testified that Najib never lodged reports on the role played by Low, and said financial publication The Edge owner Tan Sri Tong Kooi Ong’s 2015 attempt to get clarification from Najib on 1MDB had gone "unheeded”.

The judge also said Najib had given instructions for the disbanding of a multi-agency taskforce, which was headed by then attorney general Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail to investigate allegations on 1MDB and transactions of money deposited into Najib’s account.

The judge said there was evidence that Najib took steps to remove the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) chief, and added that the attorney general who replaced Abdul Gani had closed the 1MDB case.

Among other things, the judge said Najib had not declared to Cabinet about his receiving of RM2.6 billion into his personal bank accounts, and that the spending of the funds from his accounts had included credit card spending.

The judge noted that prosecution witness and former Bank Negara Malaysia governor Tan Sri Zeti Akhtar Aziz had refused Najib’s July 2015 request to release a statement to say there were no wrongdoings involving the money credited into his account.

The judge also referred to audio recordings and transcripts of the recordings which have been accepted as evidence in the 1MDB trial, and said these were used to show attempts by Najib to cover up the 1MDB issue.

Among other things, the judge also said Najib had previously in a statement – to the MACC during investigations – admitted that he had full control and authority over his AmBank bank account, and also concluded that ultimately Najib brought no benefits to the Malaysian government via his actions related to 1MDB.

Judge says Arab donation letters ‘questionable’

Throughout this trial, Najib’s lawyers had insisted that he had believed that the huge sums of money which entered his personal bank account were donations from Saudi Arabia, and had tried to persuade the judge with four purported letters from an alleged Saudi prince promising donations to Najib.

But the judge referred to former 1MDB general counsel Jasmine Loo’s testimony, where she told the court that she had met Low in a London hotel’s business centre room in 2015 and had seen three other individuals there including Low’s alleged associate Kee Kok Thiam.

Loo had as the 50th prosecution witness testified that she heard Low instructing Kee to prepare a letter from "Prince Saud” to confirm that the money deposited into Najib’s account was a Saudi donation, and that she had left the room and returned to see Kee preparing the letter dated June 1, 2014.

Loo said this 2015 event took place as a response to allegations that money that entered Najib’s account was money from 1MDB.

The judge said Loo’s testimony is a piece of evidence that supports the prosecution’s case that the money received by Najib were not donations from the Arabs, but were a result of Najib’s actions and vested interests as stated in the power abuse charges against him.

"This further raises the reasonable inference that the other letters in respect of the Arab donations were of questionable origin,” the judge said when casting doubt on the three other purported Arab donation letters.

Previously, the prosecution had in December 2022 insisted that Najib will not be able to use these four purported donation letters to defend himself over the RM2.27 billion as other courts had found the letters to be a fabrication.

After going through all this evidence by the prosecution in court, the judge then ordered Najib to enter defence for the four power abuse charges.

As for the 21 money laundering charges, the judge said the prosecution had shown the three ingredients of the offences that would require Najib to defend himself against, namely the act of money laundering, that the money laundered was from unlawful activities, and that Najib had knowledge that the money came from unlawful activities.