{"id":13416,"date":"2022-03-03T20:59:11","date_gmt":"2022-03-03T12:59:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/?p=13416"},"modified":"2022-03-03T20:59:13","modified_gmt":"2022-03-03T12:59:13","slug":"court-dismisses-najib-irwan-serigars-application-for-dnaa-over-cbt-charges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/?p=13416","title":{"rendered":"Court dismisses Najib, Irwan Serigar\u2019s application for DNAA over CBT charges"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>KUALA LUMPUR, March 3 \u00a0\u00a0&#8212; The High Court here today dismissed an application by Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak and former Treasury secretary-general Tan Sri Mohd Irwan Serigar Abdullah for them to be given a discharge not amounting to an acquittal (DNAA) on six counts of criminal breach of trust (CBT) amounting to RM6.6 billion involving International Petroleum Investment Company (IPIC).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Judge Datuk Muhammad Jamil Hussin said the court dismissed the applications on grounds that the&nbsp;prosecution was ready for the trial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>\u201cThe trial dates, for 32 days, from\u00a0September 2021 have been set before, but were vacated at the request of the prosecution and it was not objected to by the defense.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>&#8220;An application for a\u00a0discharge not amounting to an acquittal\u00a0under Section 254 of the Criminal Procedure Code can only be allowed if the prosecution does not intend to continue the case,&#8221;<\/em> he said and set April 1 to 4,\u00a0 8-11 and throughout May next year as the new trial dates for the case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Najib, 68, and Mohd Irwan, 63, applied for the DNAA today during the case management&nbsp;on the grounds that they were charged in 2018 but had not been tried until now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Earlier, lawyer Wan Aizuddin Wan Mohammed, representing Najib, submitted that his client had not been tried yet and the case was still pending despite him being charged four years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>\u201cWe also applied for several documents from the prosecution according to Section 51A of the Criminal Procedure Code, but there were not completed yet. Therefore, we applied for our client to be given a\u00a0 discharge not amounting to\u00a0an acquittal,\u201d<\/em> he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/najib-irwan-030322-1068x755-1-1024x724.png\" alt=\"DNAA\" class=\"wp-image-13417\" width=\"497\" height=\"351\" srcset=\"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/najib-irwan-030322-1068x755-1-1024x724.png 1024w, https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/najib-irwan-030322-1068x755-1-300x212.png 300w, https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/najib-irwan-030322-1068x755-1-768x543.png 768w, https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/najib-irwan-030322-1068x755-1-141x100.png 141w, https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/najib-irwan-030322-1068x755-1-350x247.png 350w, https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/najib-irwan-030322-1068x755-1-800x566.png 800w, https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/najib-irwan-030322-1068x755-1.png 1068w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 497px) 100vw, 497px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Lawyer Datuk K. Kumaraendran, representing Mohd Irwan, said he did not doubt the court process or the prosecution, but the case facing his client was still pending and had been mentioned 14 times in court since October 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>\u201cThis case has been suspended because there is no suitable hearing date\u00a0as the first accused, Datuk Seri Najib, is being tried in several different courts and we have received information from his lawyer, the only available date is in 2023,\u201d<\/em> he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Deputy public prosecutor Muhammad Saifuddin Hashim Musaimi, however, objected to the application on the grounds that it was unfair for the court to allow the two accused to be discharged but not amounting to an acquittal at this stage (before the trial).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He said the prosecution was ready to conduct the case, where it had submitted documents three times\u00a0under Section 51A and in accordance with the provisions of the law, the defense could submit additional documents, if any, before the trial.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>\u201cThe public prosecutor represents 34 million members of the public who want to see this case go to trial. They\u00a0cannot be given a DNAA just like that. We are ready to prove the charges against the two accused,\u201d<\/em> he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On Oct 24, 2018, Najib and Mohd Irwan pleaded not guilty to six charges of CBT amounting to RM6.6 billion in government funds involving payments to&nbsp;International Petroleum Investment Company (IPIC).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Najib and\u00a0Mohd Irwan Serigar were jointly accused of committing all the offenses at the Finance Ministry Complex, Putrajaya between Dec\u00a021, 2016, and Dec\u00a018, 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They were charged under Section 409 of the Penal Code read together with Section 34 of the same code which provides for a maximum of 20 years jail and whipping as well as fine upon conviction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/\">NMT<\/a> as reported by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bernama.com\/en\/crime_courts\/news.php?id=2057906\">Bernama<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>KUALA LUMPUR, March 3 \u00a0\u00a0&#8212; The High Court here today dismissed an application by Datuk&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13417,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,524],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13416","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\/2022\/03\/najib-irwan-030322-1068x755-1.png",1068,755,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/najib-irwan-030322-1068x755-1-150x150.png",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/najib-irwan-030322-1068x755-1-300x212.png",300,212,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/najib-irwan-030322-1068x755-1-768x543.png",640,453,true],"large":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/najib-irwan-030322-1068x755-1-1024x724.png",640,453,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/najib-irwan-030322-1068x755-1.png",1068,755,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/najib-irwan-030322-1068x755-1.png",1068,755,false],"newsium-slider-full":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/najib-irwan-030322-1068x755-1.png",1068,755,false],"newsium-featured":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/najib-irwan-030322-1068x755-1.png",1024,724,false],"newsium-medium":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/najib-irwan-030322-1068x755-1.png",672,475,false]},"author_info":{"info":["Editor"]},"category_info":"<a href=\"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/?cat=21\" rel=\"category\">Crime<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/?cat=524\" rel=\"category\">Nation<\/a>","tag_info":"Nation","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13416","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=13416"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13416\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13418,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13416\/revisions\/13418"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}