KUALA LUMPUR (Dec 6): The defence in the ongoing 1Malaysia Development Bhd-Tanore (1MDB-Tanore) trial of former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak intends to cross-examine former AmBank relationship manager Joanna Yu for about a week.
Lead defence counsel Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah informed the court of the defence's intended timeframe on Tuesday (Dec 6) before the end of Tuesday’s proceedings.
“[We will take] about a week,” Muhammad Shafee said.
Previously, Yu had detailed to the court how fugitive financier Low Taek Jho or Jho Low had approached AmBank in 2009 for an “unprecedented” RM10 billion bond issuance, with a 30-year tenure for the Terengganu Investment Authority (TIA), which soon after was transformed to 1MDB. She also testified to how Najib’s AmBank private accounts came to be set up about two years later.
Yu’s examination-in-chief has been completed but the defence has yet to begin cross-examining her.
She was expected to take the stand on Tuesday but parties took up the day submitting their replies over the admissibility of an audio recording of an alleged conversation between Najib and a Middle Eastern leader.
Yu is now expected to take the stand on Wednesday (Dec 7) afternoon, when the trial resumes.
Judge will decide before former treasury sec-gen takes the stand again
Over five days since last month, both prosecution and defence have intermittently submitted on the admissibility of the audio recording.
The prosecution wants to admit the recording to counter Najib’s defence in this trial that the monies he received were donations.
However, the defence has objected to admitting the recording and has alluded to the recording possibly having been illegally obtained.
During submissions on Tuesday, Muhammad Shafee argued that the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) Act 2009 does not include a definition of what constitutes a document.
“There is nothing in [the] MACC Act. [It] is so devoid [...] that the prosecution had to rely on Evidence Act 1950 on the definition of document because the MACC Act does not [provide that definition],” he argued, adding it was a “big obstacle” for the prosecution.
“The word ‘document’ does not include video, audio recording. This tape recording does not come within the ambit of [a] document at all,” he added.
Countering this, lead public prosecutor Datuk Seri Gopal Sri Ram argued that the ordinary meaning of what constitutes a document would include tape recordings.
“(My learned friend says) we are blowing hot and cold [because] for the definition of document, we relied on the Evidence Act. [That is not correct]. We say that we can rely on the common law definition of document,” he argued.
Muhammad Shafee also argued that the prosecution had abused the court’s process because instead of admitting the intercepted communication under Section 43 of the MACC Act, which concerns the power to intercept communications, they used a “backdoor mode” by compelling the court to admit the audio recording under Section 41A of the MACC Act.
Sri Ram countered that that Section 41A and Section 43 operated within two “different spheres and that Section 41A was introduced to buttress Section 43.
“Section 43(1) was in the original Act and 41A was introduced in 2018. If one looks at Section 43 as an existing provision, it is obvious Parliament brought in Section 41A to buttress the original position,” he said.
The prosecution had introduced the recording last month and wanted former Treasury secretary-general Tan Sri Mohd Irwan Serigar Abdullah to identify the voices in the recording.
Trial judge Datuk Collin Lawrence Sequerah said on Tuesday that he will decide on the matter before Irwan is to take the stand again.
Deputy public prosecutor Ahmad Akram Gharib informed the court that Irwan will take the stand after the defence finishes its cross examination of Yu.
Najib is on trial on four counts of abuse of power and 21 counts of money laundering involving RM2.28 billion of the strategic development company’s monies.
The trial resumes on Wednesday afternoon.
The Edge is covering the trial live here.
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