News by Emir Zainul

"Based on the increasing trend of daily Covid-19 cases, the government has decided to take more drastic and stringent measures to curb the spread of Covid-19 infections in the community and prevent a sharp increase in cases," Muhyiddin said.

Pushing the cumulative figure of positive cases in the country to 427,927

"The next case management date will be on June 1."

The defence had requested for the trial to be postponed as one of its team members is under quarantine due to being in close contact with a number of Covid-19 positive patients.

The 1MDB-Tanore trial was slated to continue today for two days before Justice Collin Lawrence Sequerah. Najib and his team of lawyers were supposed to wrap up arguments in his SRC appeal on May 6 at the Court of Appeal in Putrajaya. 

Najib's lead defence counsel Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah today argued that the former premier's participation in the two Cabinet meetings, which resulted in two government guarantees to SRC for the RM4 billion loans from Retirement Fund (Incorporated) (KWAP), could not be enough to prove that he had personal interest in the company as he was doing so in his professional capacity as the prime minister and finance minister at the time. 

Datuk V Sithambaram: Based on the evidence adduced, there is no basis to say that the judge was the second prosecutor. There was no basis in calling the judge hopelessly incompetent or demonstrated incompetence. This submission is made to save the integrity of this ground of judgement, to ensure that the due administration of justice is not in any way taken.

Ad hoc prosecutor Datuk V Sithambaram pointed out that Najib did not explain why it never crossed his mind to find out how his accounts continued to have sufficient funds for his "limitless expense" despite the so-called Arab donations drying up. 

Ad hoc prosecutor Datuk V Sithambaram submitted that the dispute over the authenticity of Najib's signatures were only brought up to rebut the finding of the court at the close of the prosecution’s case that the former premier was in fact the agent and shadow director of SRC based on the seven disputed documents.

Ad hoc prosecutor Datuk V Sithambaram said that based on the BBM messages, it could be established that Najib must have had knowledge of his finances as he had tasked Jho Low to ensure the accounts had funds for him, to gauge how much he could spend from those accounts.