News by Timothy Achariam

The government needed more time to study expert reports on the feedlot project, senior federal counsel Azizan Arshad said in the High Court today.

The jewellery and other items belonged mostly to Najib’s wife Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor, who was already granted permission by the High Court to physically inspect the items worth RM680 million in March.

Lead defence lawyer Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, who was giving his oral submissions during the trial today, said the defence had an uphill task to defend Najib as “a victim of a scam” because of the prejudice that he was a man of finance and, therefore, should have been aware of the money coming into his accounts.

As both cases involve former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak as the accused, Najib’s lawyer Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah had sought to vacate the 1MDB-Tanore trial for today as the defence is currently in the midst of making their oral submissions in the SRC case.

Explaining to Justice Nazlan Mohd Ghazali, appointed prosecutor Datuk V Sithambaram (pictured) said they did not need to call chief financial officer (CFO) See Yoke Peng as SRC director Datuk Suboh Md Yassin, who was a signatory for the company, had signed off on funds which were transferred out of SRC and eventually ended up in the personal accounts of Datuk Seri Najib Abdul Razak.

Appointed prosecutor Datuk V Sithambaram pointed out an oddity — that when Najib removed Nik Faisal Ariff Kamil as the chief executive officer (CEO) of SRC amid complaints about financial misconduct, he but still kept the latter as the mandate holder.

Making his oral submissions before Justice Nazlan Mohd Ghazali, lawyer Harvinderjit Singh surmised that the prosecution had the chance to call on SRC International Sdn Bhd chief financial officer (CFO) See Yoke Peng as a witness as it was her who verified all the signatures of the signatories before the funds were transferred out of SRC.

Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said out of the 57 new cases, 10 were imported while 47 were local.  Of the 47 local cases, 43 involved non-Malaysians while four were Malaysians.

The minister urged the public not to believe everything non-governmental organisations (NGOs) or politicians say about the matter.

The number of active cases today rose to 1,185 from 1,163 yesterday.