PUTRAJAYA, Oct 23 — Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, the lead lawyer for Datuk Seri Najib Razak, wants the High Court to consider the possibility that the former prime minister had been negligent instead of having behaved criminally in the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) case.
As the 1MDB trial resumed today, Shafee argued that Najib should be given the benefit of doubt if the sovereign investment fund’s former CEO Datuk Shahrol Azral Ibrahim Halmi was seen as possibly negligent in running the company.
In proceedings earlier, another defence lawyer Wan Azwan Aiman Wan Fakhruddin repeatedly challenged the credibility of Shahrol’s testimony as a prosecution witness against Najib.
Among other things, Wan Azwan Aiman later argued that Shahrol was not just being “negligent” but alleged that the latter had played an active role together with Low Taek Jho in carrying out 1MDB transactions.
Wan Azwan Aiman later also asked why Shahrol had not been charged and put on trial.
At one point, 1MDB trial judge Datuk Collin Lawrence Sequerah had asked for clarification on whether there was any evidence during the trial that Shahrol had benefited financially or received anything from the 1MDB transactions and 1MDB deals.
Wan Azwan Aiman confirmed that the trial records do not show any evidence that Shahrol had benefited financially from the 1MDB deals, but said the defence would not know for sure or cannot be certain if Shahrol had such benefits.
Shafee then said for a man in Shahrol’s position as CEO who allegedly “kept on doing the wrong thing and harming the company, the obvious inference is he must be benefiting from it”.
“Or he is just hopelessly completely negligent,” the judge said.
“Yes, we can attribute that to him, but he is a graduate from Stanford, nothing less,” Shafee replied.
He added that Shahrol cannot be inferred to be “stupid”, asserting that “what he benefits, he is smart enough to hide, but to keep on doing these blunders against the interest of the company when you are the CEO, surely there must be an inference … definitely he must be benefiting.”
Shafee said that Najib could be viewed as being negligent as he claimed the latter did not benefit personally from the money that entered his personal bank accounts.
“If Yang Arif or anybody else were to look at Shahrol’s actions, there is a possibility he is negligent, why can’t the same benefit be given to my client? He could be negligent and that’s not criminality, so we should extend the same to him.
“There’s nothing to show he benefited personally, for example, buying a yacht, buying expensive stuff. But everything we had proven, went into welfare and political purposes. All those money,” Shafee said.
“Yang Arif must also consider the fact he returned US$620 million, which is unheard of for a person who robbed the company and returned it,” he added.
Earlier this week in the 1MDB trial, Najib spoke of his belief that the billions of ringgit which entered his bank accounts were donations from Saudi Arabia, and not 1MDB money.
Najib claimed he had returned US$620 million of the US$681 million of the “donations”.
He denied buying million-dollar paintings or swanky properties with the rest of the money, saying he had issued cheques for political and social welfare purposes.
Najib’s 1MDB trial resumes tomorrow, with his lawyers expected to continue presenting submissions.
