{"id":16488,"date":"2023-03-03T12:23:20","date_gmt":"2023-03-03T04:23:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/?p=16488"},"modified":"2023-03-03T12:23:23","modified_gmt":"2023-03-03T04:23:23","slug":"1mdb-audit-tampering-case-high-court-acquits-najib-arul-kanda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/?p=16488","title":{"rendered":"1MDB audit tampering case: High Court acquits Najib, Arul Kanda"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>KUALA LUMPUR, March 3<\/strong> &#8212; The\u00a0High Court here today acquitted and discharged Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak and former 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB)\u00a0chief executive officer Arul Kanda Kandasamy of a charge in relation\u00a0\u00a0to 1MDB audit tampering case.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Justice Mohamed Zaini Mazlan (currently Court of Appeal judge) ruled that the prosecution had failed to establish&nbsp;a prima facie case against the duo at the end of the prosecution&#8217;s case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u00a0He said\u00a0 Arul Kanda, who was called as the prosecution witness had made truthful and full discovery during the trial.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"627\" height=\"417\" src=\"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/najib-12.jpg\" alt=\"audit\" class=\"wp-image-14706\" srcset=\"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/najib-12.jpg 627w, https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/najib-12-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/najib-12-150x100.jpg 150w, https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/najib-12-350x233.jpg 350w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 627px) 100vw, 627px\" \/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n<p>Najib, 70, who is currently serving a 12-year jail sentence in Kajang prison for misappropriating SRC International Sdn Bhd&#8217;s funds, is charged with using his position to order amendments to the 1MDB final audit report before it was presented to the Public Accounts Committee to avoid any action being taken against him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While Arul Kanda, 46, is charged with abetting Najib in making the amendments to the audit report, to protect Najib from being subjected to action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The offence was allegedly committed at the Prime Minister&#8217;s Department Complex, Federal Government Administrative Centre, Putrajaya between Feb 22 and 26, 2016.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Both of them were charged under Section 23 (1) of the MACC Act, which provides for a jail term of up to 20 years and a fine of no less than five times the amount of gratification or RM10,000, whichever is higher, 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\/news.php?id=2169622\">Bernama<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>KUALA LUMPUR, March 3 &#8212; The\u00a0High Court here today acquitted and discharged Datuk Seri Najib&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14706,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10893,21,524],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-courts","category-crime","category-nation"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/najib-12.jpg",627,417,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/najib-12-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/najib-12-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/najib-12.jpg",627,417,false],"large":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/najib-12.jpg",627,417,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/najib-12.jpg",627,417,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/najib-12.jpg",627,417,false],"newsium-slider-full":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/najib-12.jpg",627,417,false],"newsium-featured":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/najib-12.jpg",627,417,false],"newsium-medium":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/najib-12.jpg",627,417,false]},"author_info":{"info":["Editor"]},"category_info":"<a href=\"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/?cat=10893\" rel=\"category\">Courts<\/a> <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\/16488","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=16488"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16488\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16489,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16488\/revisions\/16489"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}