This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on April 18, 2019

KUALA LUMPUR: A short spat occurred between the prosecution and the defence lawyers at the Datuk Seri Najib Razak-SRC International Sdn Bhd trial yesterday as both sides questioned the tactics used during the examination of the second witness.

Attorney-General Tommy Thomas spoke in court for the first time this week to defend the prosecution’s method of re-examining Bank Negara Malaysia officer Azizul Adzani Abdul Ghafar, which was disputed by Najib’s defence lawyer Havinderjit Singh.

Havinderjit argued that re-examination should not have questions outside the scope of the cross-examination by the defence earlier. “My suggestion for my learned friend [is to] refer to what the witness said, and then to clarify. If you want to do that (ask new questions) I am just going to stand up and leave,” he said.

Thomas then stood up to say that everyone has their own style of examination-in-chief, cross-examination or re-examination.

“We do not need a lecture from the other side on how members of our team have to do what they ask,” he said.

Havinderjit said he was not trying to suggest any particular style of re-examination, but only stressing that the Evidence Act says that the re-examination must be to clarify pointers of the cross-examination.

“That is exactly it,” responded Thomas. “That is exactly about style. One style is to summarise the understanding of the cross-examination questions. That is one style, but our idea is four or five general questions.

“I’m glad my learned friend said he’s [got some] experience. But I have been doing trial for 42 years,” he added.

After hearing both parties’ arguments, Justice Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali said: “Just mention the points that you want to re-examine.”