KUALA LUMPUR, July 26 — Former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s new lawyers for his SRC case today informed the Federal Court that they would be seeking for the postponement of the August 15 hearing of his final appeal against his conviction over the misappropriation of SRC International Sdn Bhd’s RM42 million, since they have been newly appointed.
In a letter to the Federal Court which was sighted and verified by Malay Mail, the law firm Zaid Ibrahim Suflan TH Liew & Partners confirmed it has been appointed as Najib’s new lawyers for the SRC case, and that Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah’s law firm Shafee & Co would no longer be representing Najib in this case.
The letter said that Hisyam Teh Poh Teik from the law firm Hisyam Teh would instead be Najib’s new lead defence lawyer for the SRC case, while Zaid Ibrahim Suflan TH Liew & Partners’ partners Liew Teck Huat and Rueben Mathiavaranam would be his new solicitors.
In the same letter written by Liew, he asked the Federal Court for an urgent case management on or before July 29, due to the change of Najib’s defence team in the SRC case and in order for the new legal team to provide an update and to obtain further directions from the court.
Liew also notified the Federal Court that Najib has instructed his new defence lawyers in the SRC case to seek for a postponement of the final SRC appeal hearing, which had been scheduled to start in a few weeks’ time.
“At the Mention or Case Management Conference, we are instructed to: a. Withdraw the pending Appeal against the decision of the High Court dismissing the Appellant’s application for ad-hoc admission of Jonathan Laidlaw QC.
“b. Address the Honourable Court with regard to the adjournment of the Notice of Motion filed on 07.06.2022 and the main appeal fixed for hearing on 15.08.2022 to 26.08.2022, on the basis that a wholly new team has taken over conduct of the above matter
“We sincerely apologise to the Honourable Court for all the inconvenience caused by this request,” Liew told the Federal Court.
After being found guilty at the High Court in July 2020 and losing his appeal at the Court of Appeal in December 2021, Najib had on December 8, 2021 filed his final appeal in the SRC case at the Federal Court.
The Federal Court had on April 29 notified both Najib’s lawyers and the prosecution that it will be hearing his SRC appeal over 10 days from August 15 to August 19, and from August 22 to August 26.
Apart from informing the Federal Court of Najib’s plans to seek for the postponement of the August hearing of the final SRC appeal, the new legal team said it would also seek for the postponement of Najib’s application previously filed on June 7, 2022 at the Federal Court.
In his June 7 application, Najib had applied to add alleged new evidence and call new witnesses for his SRC case to support his claim of conflict of interest by SRC trial judge Datuk Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali, and was also asking the Federal Court to declare the entire SRC trial void and to consider ordering a retrial. This application was scheduled for case management at the Federal Court on July 29.
As for Najib’s May 31 bid to have UK lawyer Jonathan Laidlaw to be allowed to practise in Malaysia in order to represent him in the final SRC appeal, the High Court had on July 21 rejected this application as it found that Laidlaw did not have special qualifications or special experience that would not already be available among local lawyers in Malaysia.
The High Court’s July 21 decision to refuse Laidlaw’s bid could be appealed directly to the Federal Court, but the letter today by Najib’s new lawyers for the SRC case indicated that Najib will seek to drop his appeal in relation to the UK lawyer.
