PUTRAJAYA, 1 JULY – The Court of Appeal has rescheduled the hearing of Rosmah Mansor’s appeal against her corruption conviction in the RM1.25 billion solar project case. The proceedings are now set for September, allowing time for the Federal Court to resolve her final application to disqualify the original trial judge.
A three-member bench chaired by Justice Azhahari Kamal Ramli granted the adjournment, setting new dates across three separate blocks in September. Justice Azhahari explained that the panel was following an earlier directive from the former Court of Appeal president, which guaranteed that the conviction appeal would hold until all recusal proceedings concluded in the apex court.
“We are allowing her to exhaust all available legal avenues, including the review application,” Justice Azhahari stated. However, he also labeled the matter an “ageing case” and warned that there would be “no further postponements once the hearing begins in September.”
Justices Choo Kah Sing and K Muniandy also sat on the panel, while Rosmah was represented by attorney Jagjit Singh. Deputy public prosecutor K Mangai had argued against the postponement, noting that the appeal had been pending since 2023 and was originally scheduled to begin this week.
The Disqualification Dispute
The Federal Court is slated to hear Rosmah’s review application on July 29. She is seeking a reversal of the apex court’s earlier ruling that denied her request to disqualify trial judge Zaini Mazlan, who has since risen to the Court of Appeal.
This specific challenge began on September 1, 2022, when Zaini rejected a last-minute recusal bid immediately before delivering his verdict. Rosmah maintained that she “lost confidence in the judge” after a blogger leaked a purported draft of the judgment online prior to the official announcement.
Though her subsequent challenges failed—culminating in a March 3 Federal Court ruling that found Zaini was “not biased” and that Rosmah had “not suffered any miscarriage of justice”—Rosmah is now invoking Rule 137 of the Federal Court Rules 1995. She contends the court made an error by dismissing the risk of bias when two versions of the judgment allegedly existed. If the apex court rules in her favor, the wife of former prime minister Najib Razak wants an entirely new panel to rehear the matter.
Details of the Conviction
The legal saga stems from a September 2, 2022 decision where Zaini found Rosmah guilty of three counts of corruption linked to a solar hybrid project for schools in Sarawak.
The court found that she solicited RM187.5 million from Saidi Abang Samsudin, the former managing director of Jepak Holdings, using her former assistant Rizal Mansor as an intermediary to help the company secure the contract. She was also convicted of receiving a RM5 million cash payment from Saidi on December 20, 2016, at Seri Perdana in Putrajaya, and a further RM1.5 million on September 7, 2017, at her private home on Jalan Langgak Duta.
Zaini sentenced Rosmah to 10 years’ imprisonment on each of the three charges, ordering the jail terms to run concurrently. The court also imposed a RM970 million fine, with an additional 10-year prison term stipulated if she fails to pay. Rosmah remains out on bail while she challenges the verdict.
-NMT
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