KUALA LUMPUR, June 2 — Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s lead defence lawyer Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah has tested positive for Covid-19, which means the court proceedings tomorrow cannot go on for Najib’s trial over the alleged tampering of the auditor-general’s audit report on 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).
Rahmat Hazlan, another one of Najib’s lawyers, confirmed this today.
“It’s not going on, Tan Sri has no further MC, but he has been tested positive for Covid,” he told Malay Mail.
Rahmat said that Shafee had tested positive for Covid-19 via the rapid test kit on Tuesday and had yesterday received the confirmation via the PCR test.
Rahmat said Najib’s lawyers wrote to the High Court yesterday regarding this, adding that the High Court had replied today.
The next scheduled date for this trial is June 24, Rahmat said.
Tomorrow was initially scheduled to be the replacement day for the High Court’s hearing of the public prosecutor’s application to have the other accused person in this trial — former 1MDB CEO Arul Kanda Kandasamy — called in as a prosecution witness, as well as Najib’s objections to Arul Kanda becoming a witness against him.
The hearing of the application to have Arul Kanda become a prosecution witness was supposed to be on Monday, but it was postponed to tomorrow as Shafee fell ill on Monday.
On Monday, Rahmat had told the High Court that Shafee had called him that morning to inform him of his fever and sore throat, and that Shafee would be going to the clinic to obtain a medical certificate (MC).
The prosecution did not object to Najib’s lawyers’ application to postpone the Monday hearing due to Shafee’s illness, and the High Court had allowed the postponement but also required the lawyers to fix additional replacement dates.
After Shafee fell ill, the High Court’s proceedings scheduled for Tuesday to Thursday also did not go on, and were instead replaced with three additional dates in October.
For the application to have Arul Kanda be a prosecution witness that was initially due to be heard tomorrow, Shafee was expected to take between 90 minutes and half a day to present his objections, while lead prosecutor Datuk Seri Gopal Sri Ram was expected to take about 30 minutes to present the prosecution’s arguments in favour of Arul Kanda be called in as a prosecution witness.
In this trial, Najib is accused of having as then prime minister and then finance minister abused his position between February 22, 2016 and February 26, 2016 to receive self-gratification in the form of protection from civil or criminal action over his role in the handling of 1MDB operations, by instructing for amendments to the auditor-general’s report on 1MDB — which was already finalised and ready to be presented to the parliamentary watchdog Public Accounts Committee (PAC) — before it was finally presented to the PAC.
Arul Kanda was charged with abetting Najib.
On the first day of this trial on November 18, 2019, the prosecution had already informed the court that it would apply to have Arul Kanda be a prosecution witness in the future at an appropriate stage of the trial.
On May 20, the prosecution applied to have Arul Kanda testify as a prosecution witness, as he had information relevant to the charge against Najib and information which would materially affect the outcome of the prosecution of Najib.
Arul Kanda’s lawyer Datuk N. Sivananthan did not object to this application for his client to be a prosecution witness, but had previously also argued that the prosecution should withdraw the charge against his client after he completes his testimony as a prosecution witness against Najib.
Arul Kanda currently is still an accused person in this trial.
