Putrajaya, Dec 8 — The Court of Appeal rejected Najib Razak’s appeal against his conviction and sentence for charges related to the RM42 million from SRC International, upholding the High Court’s verdict last year, which found Najib guilty of seven counts of criminal breach of trust (CBT), money laundering and abuse of power.
A three-man bench led by judge Abdul Karim Abdul Jalil delivered its judgment in a unanimous decision today.
Karim, who sat with Has Zanah Mehat and Vazeer Alam Mydin Meera, described the offenses as a national embarrassment, adding that they could not be said to have been done in national interests.
Karim further said the bench agreed with the trial judge’s findings that there was clear misappropriation of the RM42 million by Najib for his own use.
He also said that Najib’s submissions on donations from Saudi Arabia were untenable, adding that no confirmation was found in the letters submitted by the Pekan MP.
“The trial judge did not err in the sentence, and we find proper consideration by the trial judge,” he said in affirming the sentence on all charges.
Najib, who attended the court proceeding online through Zoom, appeared calm but pensive as the decision was read out.
He was convicted in July last year and sentenced to 10 years in jail for each of the six charges related to CBT and money laundering and 12 years for abuse of power, for which he was also fined RM210 million or five times the amount in question – a total of 72 years.
But High Court judge Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali who handed down the verdict used his discretion to order for the sentences to run concurrently.
Karim today said that Najib had relied on reasons given by former attorney-general Apandi Ali, former Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission director-general Zulkifli Ahmad and former treasury chief Irwan Serigar.
“The decision of the trial judge was correct in stating that their opinion cannot replace the evidence,” he said when reading out the summary decision.
The bench also agreed with Nazlan’s judgment that Najib as PM had a personal interest in approving an RM4 billion loan from the Retirement Fund to SRC International.
Karim said the evidence showed that the RM42 million belonged to SRC International and was transferred to several accounts in order to obscure the flow of funds and to make it difficult to trace before entering Najib’s accounts.
Najib’s lawyer Muhammad Shafee Abdullah has applied for a stay of execution pending further appeal at the apex court.
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