Naijb Anwar Should Understand He Knows What It S Like To Be Punched

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Former prime minister Najib Abdul Razak said MACC’s actions against him in the 1MDB case were like “blindfolding” him in a fistfight.
He said as MACC investigators did not reveal details of the allegations against him, he was robbed of the ability to defend himself properly.
“It is like blindfolding your opponent in a fistfight and declaring that it was a fair fight because he was still able to throw a few punches.
“This should not have happened to anyone. Our current Yang Amat Berhormat, the prime minister (Anwar), should be more sensitive about this as he knows best of the sufferings of being punched, blindfolded, and handcuffed,” Najib said in the Kuala Lumpur High Court today.
He testified that the 21 charges of power abuse and money laundering against him involving RM2.27 billion of funds from 1MDB were politically motivated.
The accused contended that Anwar, who was a victim of political persecution, should understand his situation.
“I believe that I would be the best person to say whether I was prejudiced or not.
“Personally, as an accused person, I was indeed extremely prejudiced by this conscious and deliberate omission by the MACC, equally, as the former prime minister who had sworn to uphold the Constitution of this country, I was appalled by this fact too.
“I do not for a moment think that the Federal Constitution contemplates this approach of charging a citizen first and depriving him of his personal liberty and only to grant him the opportunity to explain himself later only during trial through cross-examination…
“I would not be surprised if such injustices have occurred to others, but it appears that it required happening to someone of my standing, where the public and the media are closely watching, to bring attention to these issues.
“It is my hope that this injustice ends with me,” Najib told trial judge Collin Lawrence Sequerah.
Najib was referring to Anwar being punched, blindfolded, and handcuffed following the then-finance minister’s falling out with then-prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad in the 1990s.

‘My version couldn’t be explained fully’
Najib contended that the MACC not sharing the details of the allegation against him during the investigation had prejudiced him in the prelude to trial.
“In an honest and impartial prosecution, the prosecutor, being analogous to a ‘Minister of Justice’, had a duty to see if my complete explanation in my statement to the MACC has raised a reasonable doubt on the case produced by MACC.
“Here, in this case, none of what has become serious issues of facts and presumption have been confronted to me by the investigating/recording officers.
“Without such confrontation, I am deprived of the basic check and balances to get the investigating officers to understand my side of the version of facts so that when the prosecution considered to charge me or not, he would have been alerted of the probabilities of the defence version,” he said.
Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC)“As my version could not be explained fully as I was not aware of the exact charges that would be preferred against me and compounded by the fact that the relevant specifics in the anticipated charges (only known to the investigation/prosecution) were not confronted to me, I had lost the fundamental natural justice ‘to be heard’ before an adverse decision to charge me was made,” Najib testified.
The accused contended that when he was first charged on Sept 20, 2018, the abuse of power charges did not specify what alleged interest he had in 1MDB.
“To this day, my lawyers and I are left to speculate on precisely what this supposed interest might be, is it TIA (Terengganu Investment Authority, the precursor to 1MDB), is it in Goldman Sachs (United States investment bank which helped in TIA financing), is it in IMTN (Islamic Medium Term Notes issued by TIA before transforming into 1MDB), is it in Ambank (where Najib’s accounts were), or was it in MBTI (Menteri Besar of Terengganu Incorporated which owned TIA before its ownership was transferred to the federal government)?
“I am still clueless. It seems we were expected to engage in a guessing game rather than being presented with any specificity.
“We were and still are flying blind within the territory of this personal interest alleged against me,” the accused lamented.
The trial continues this afternoon and is also scheduled for tomorrow until Friday.
Najib’s cases
On Oct 30, the criminal court ordered Najib to enter his defence over four abuse of power and 21 money laundering charges involving RM2.27 billion of funds from 1MDB.
Sequerah ruled that the prosecution succeeded in establishing a prima facie (answerable) case against Najib, who was also a finance minister, over the company that is wholly owned by the Ministry of Finance Incorporated (MOF Inc).
The criminal court judge ruled that Najib had to answer the charges due to the strength of the various 50 witness testimonies during the prosecution stage of proceedings that lasted six years since the trial began in 2019. The accused was first charged in 2018.
Prosecutors claimed that fugitive businessperson Low Taek Jho (Jho Low) was involved in the financial wrongdoing at 1MDB at the behest of Najib.
Low Taek JhoHowever, the former Pekan MP’s defence team contended that the accused had no knowledge of wrongdoing at the Malaysian sovereign wealth fund, and the embezzlement there was solely perpetrated by Low and members of its management.
Najib is serving a six-year jail sentence over a separate abuse of power case involving RM42 million of funds from SRC International, a former subsidiary of 1MDB.
He is also facing an ongoing criminal trial for the RM27 million SRC money laundering case.
Previously, Najib was acquitted in another criminal case involving 1MDB’s audit report.
He was also granted a discharge not amounting to an acquittal on Nov 27 in the RM6.6 billion International Petroleum Investment Company criminal breach of trust case. - Mkini

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