This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on July 19, 2019

KUALA LUMPUR: The judge in the main 1 Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) criminal case involving 25 charges against former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak has put his foot down and dismissed the prosecution’s application to postpone the trial for the third time.

This means that the case, dubbed the Tanore case, will be heard on its assigned date of Aug 19, putting further pressure on the attorney-general (AG) to conclude the ongoing RM42 million SRC trial where Najib is also the accused.

Justice Collin Lawrence Sequerah said yesterday he did not find a reasonable cause to postpone the 1MDB trial, which has been adjourned twice from Feb 12 to May 14, and later Aug 19.

Attorney-General Tommy Thomas had highlighted that Najib — the accused in both trials — and witnesses would be unable to attend if the two trials ran concurrently, hence the need to invoke Section 259(1) of the Criminal Procedural Code (CPC).

As an accused must be present when a criminal trial is underway, the two criminal trials cannot run concurrently, Thomas pointed out.

The two trials likely involve many of the same characters, considering they are part of the larger money trail to the tune of billions of ringgit allegedly siphoned by Najib from 1MDB.

Justice Sequerah said he did not find the justification provided by the applicant as having invoked the meaning of “reasonable cause” in Section 259 of the CPC.

The Tanore trial, he said, is also of public interest, adding that he has already granted two postponements previously.

Justice Sequerah also raised the important point that once the charges have been referred, the prosecution must be prepared to proceed with the trial without unreasonable delays.

In the Tanore case, Najib is facing four corruption charges for abuse of power in 1MDB dealings, and 21 money laundering charges, where over RM2 billion was channelled from Tanore Finance Corp through his personal bank account.

The US Department of Justice has established that the funds from Tanore came from 1MDB, while Najib said in his Facebook account in September last year that the funds were part of donation from Prince Abdulaziz Al-Saud of Saudi Arabia.