Burden To Be A Vip Now Shafee Says Over Najib S Dnaa

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It is a burden to be a VIP nowadays, said Shafee Abdullah, the lawyer to former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak.
ADSHe said Najib would have been granted a discharge not amounting to an acquittal (DNAA) as early as two years into the SRC International Sdn Bhd money laundering case, which began in 2019, if he were anybody else.
“Nowadays, it is a burden to be a VIP. You might as well be a normal person. As a VIP, you really ‘kena ketuk’ (get knocked about) more than anybody else,” he lamented.
He was speaking as a panellist during the sixth Townhall Rakyat Mencari Kebenaran (Malaysians Seeking the Truth Townhall) event at KL Gateway Mall today.
On Friday (June 20), the Kuala Lumpur High Court granted a DNAA to Najib over three money laundering charges involving RM27 million from SRC International Sdn Bhd.
Former prime minister Najib Abdul RazakHigh Court judge K Muniandy said the DNAA, which temporarily drops the charges, does not prejudice the prosecution as they remain free to refile charges against Najib when ready.
He noted that the case against Najib has been pending since 2019 without a single witness called and has been marked by persistent postponements, indicating that the prosecution is not prepared to proceed.
The AGC later that day said it “did not have any other choice” but to await the conclusion of Najib’s 1MDB and the first SRC International trials, before it could use the overlapping documents required for the second SRC International case.
Seeking early release
Commenting further, Shafee expressed his belief that Najib will encounter roadblocks in his application for parole later this year despite being “a model prisoner”.
He explained that the process of remission (reducing sentence) and parole is decided by the executive, including the Prisons Department, which falls under the Home Ministry.
“I’m not making allegations against anybody in particular (but) the question that you must ask: is it in the current government’s favour to allow Najib to come out early, or is it not?” he said.
Najib will be eligible to apply for parole around September to October of this year, Shafee added.
Royal pardon
Today’s town hall also saw discussions around the royal addendum, a supplementary royal decree reportedly issued on Jan 29 last year that permitted the incarcerated Najib to serve the remainder of his jail sentence under house arrest.
Panellist Dzulkifli Ahmad, a former MACC chief commissioner, opined that the matter is not a legal one but that of implementation.
(L-R) Former MACC chief commissioner Dzulkifli Ahmad, town hall moderator and former Selangor Umno leader Kamarudin Ahmad, lawyer Shafee Abdullah, and ex-aide to Najib Abdul Razak, Omar MustaphaAfter all, power has been granted to the Yang di-Pertuan Agong by the Federal Constitution to issue a royal pardon, he argued.
He cited the royal pardon Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim received in 2018, saying there was no difference between that and the pardon Najib purportedly received.
On May 16, 2018, Anwar was granted a full pardon on the grounds that there was a miscarriage of justice.
Anwar was sent to jail for the second time in 2015 for sodomy, a charge he claimed was politically motivated.
Meanwhile, writer Omar Mustapha - an aide to Najib during his deputy prime ministership - said pardons do not happen in a vacuum and are politically influenced.
Taking Anwar’s release as an example, he said the PKR leader would have walked free in a matter of weeks even without the pardon.
“Why the pardon? This is for us to understand - the pardon itself is a political act.
“It has political consequences, and the only reason for the pardon was to allow him the liberty to contest and return to public life,” he said. - Mkini

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