\u201cIn circumstances such as this, when a prominent political leader of the land is arraigned before the court, convicted and sentenced, we find it would be the most appropriate for us to be reminded of the immortal words of former Lord President, Raja Azlan Shah, as the trial judge in Public Prosecutor v Datuk Harun Idris (former\u00a0Menteri Besar of Selangor),\u201d<\/em> he said in a 308-page grounds of\u00a0the written judgment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Raja Azlan Shah before sentencing Harun had said, \u201cI repeat what I had said before \u2014 the law is no respecter of persons. Nevertheless, it will be impossible to ignore the fact that you are in a different category from any person that I have ever tried. It would be impossible to ignore the fact that, in the eyes of millions of our countrymen and women, you are a patriot and a leader.”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cEven those who differ from you in politics look upon you as a man of high ideals. You had every chance to reach the greatest height of human achievement. But halfway along the road, you allowed avarice to corrupt you.”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt is incomprehensible how a man in your position could not in your own conscience recognize corruption for what it is. In so doing, you have not only betrayed your party cause, for which you have spoken so eloquently, but also the oath of office which you have taken and subscribed before your Sovereign Ruler, and above all the law of which you are its servant.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Justice Abdul\u00a0Karim when\u00a0remembering Raja Azlan Shah\u2019s judgment, said: \u201cSome 45\u00a0years later, these words still bear\u00a0relevance to the appellant (Najib) and where we as a nation find ourselves at now.<\/em>“<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe \u2018frightening decay in the integrity of some of our leaders\u2019 that Raja Azlan Shah warned us of 45 years ago is still a scourge that plagues this beautiful nation. The courts in upholding the rule of law would have to do what is necessary to ensure that this modern-day plague\u00a0is eradicated for the good of the nation.”<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe law is indeed \u2018no respecter of persons<\/strong>\u2019. All men are equal before the law and the courts apply the law equally to all.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Justice Abdul Karim said the bench found that the High Court judge had adequately considered all factors that were relevant before passing the sentence against Najib.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u00a0He said the role of an appellate court when it came to an appeal against sentence was very limited and it would not interfere in the trial judge\u2019s exercise of sentencing discretion unless it was shown that the judge had erred in principle, or that the sentence was either manifestly inadequate or grossly excessive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe appellant had personally implored the court to take into consideration his personal circumstances, whilst the trial judge (Mohd Nazlan) did take that into consideration but\u00a0in the final analysis,\u00a0public interest warrants a custodial sentence,\u201d<\/em> said Justice Abdul Karim<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yesterday, Justice Abdul Karim who sat with Justices Datuk Has Zanah Mehat and Datuk Vazeer Alam Mydin Meera unanimously upheld the conviction and 12 years\u2019 jail and RM210 million fine on Najib for misappropriating RM42 million in SRC International Sdn Bhd funds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The bench unanimously dismissed Najib\u2019s appeal to set aside the conviction and sentence imposed by the Kuala Lumpur High Court on July 28, 2020. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Najib, 68, has his last avenue to appeal against the verdict at the Federal Court. His legal team filed the petition of appeal yesterday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n NMT<\/a> as reported by Bernama<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" PUTRAJAYA, Dec 10 — The Court of Appeal ruled that former prime minister Datuk Seri…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12628,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,524],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-crime","category-nation"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Screen-Shot-2021-12-10-at-11.51.14.png",581,315,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Screen-Shot-2021-12-10-at-11.51.14-150x150.png",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Screen-Shot-2021-12-10-at-11.51.14-300x163.png",300,163,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Screen-Shot-2021-12-10-at-11.51.14.png",581,315,false],"large":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Screen-Shot-2021-12-10-at-11.51.14.png",581,315,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Screen-Shot-2021-12-10-at-11.51.14.png",581,315,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Screen-Shot-2021-12-10-at-11.51.14.png",581,315,false],"newsium-slider-full":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Screen-Shot-2021-12-10-at-11.51.14.png",581,315,false],"newsium-featured":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Screen-Shot-2021-12-10-at-11.51.14.png",581,315,false],"newsium-medium":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Screen-Shot-2021-12-10-at-11.51.14.png",581,315,false]},"author_info":{"info":["Editor"]},"category_info":"Crime<\/a> Nation<\/a>","tag_info":"Nation","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12627"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12627\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12629,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12627\/revisions\/12629"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"trust](\"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/Screen-Shot-2021-12-10-at-11.51.14.png\")
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