This article first appeared in The Edge Malaysia Weekly on August 29, 2022 - September 4, 2022

SENT to prison last Tuesday, former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak will undoubtedly have more time to ruminate on how he ended up there. Once the most powerful man in the country, Najib held the government and the nation’s coffers — and future — in the palm of his hand. So much was hoped of him.

Now he is destined — barring a pardon from the Yang di-Pertuan Agong and depending on who you ask — to spend eight years or more behind bars, his only reprieve from his small cell in Kajang being the occasional trips out when he is escorted to attend hearings in four other court cases related to corruption at 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) and other government agencies.

But how did the road to Kajang prison begin? Some would say it began the moment Najib conspired to abuse his position as prime minister to enrich himself. Certainly, stories of Najib and his wife Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor’s extravagant lifestyle were exploited by the Pakatan Harapan coalition, ousting him and the Barisan Nasional from power in the 14th General Election on May 9, 2018.  

Barely days after the dust had settled on the momentous victory, members of the media were scuttling back and forth from Najib’s residences in Pavilion and Langgak Duta to the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) headquarters where he was called in to give sworn testimonies in investigations into 1MDB and its subsidiary, SRC International Sdn Bhd.

In July, Najib was hauled to the High Court to be charged for the first three of his seven charges relating to SRC; the remaining charges were made on Aug 8, 2018.

Then attorney-general Tan Sri Tommy Thomas hired Datuk V Sithambaram to prosecute the case on an ad hoc basis. This was uncharted territory for everyone: A former prime minister sitting in the dock, being read charges and having to enter his plea?

It was surreal, especially in a country like Malaysia, where so-called VIPs are venerated and glorified.

The atmosphere in the court complex in Jalan Duta was tense in those early days, with Najib’s many supporters planting themselves at the entrance of the court awaiting his presence, and chants of “Hidup Najib” echoing through the halls of the lobby as he emerged in court, escorted by MACC officers, to face his charges.

Oftentimes, the SRC International trial felt like it was never going to get off the ground as Najib’s legal team, led by Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, sought numerous applications and appeals, which led to delays.

These included an interim gag order preventing the public and the media from discussing the criminal charges against him, and the discovery of documents.

He also applied via a fiat application for the prosecution to show lawyer Datuk Sulaiman Abdullah’s appointment letter from the Attorney-General’s Chambers as an appointed prosecutor, seeking to dismiss him from trying the case.

He was unsuccessful in all his applications, as the three applications were dismissed by High Court judge Datuk Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali, who set Feb 12, 2019, for the trial to commence. Najib promptly requested a postponement as he wanted to appeal Nazlan’s decision at the Court of Appeal (CoA). Nazlan rejected Najib’s request for an adjournment.

In a last-ditch attempt to delay the trial, Najib filed an application at the CoA on Feb 7, five days before the trial was meant to start. The application was linked to the transfer of his case from the Sessions Court to the High Court. He then filed an appeal the next day to stay his case, pending his appeals.

On Feb 11, Najib was successful in deferring his trial as the CoA — a three-man bench chaired by Datuk Ahmadi Asnawi, together with Datuk Mohamad Zabidin Mohd Diah and Datuk Yew Jen Kie — ruled that there were “special circumstances” for a stay of the trial.

The four appeal applications by Najib eventually meandered to the Federal Court where they were quashed. Eventually, after almost nine months to when he was charged, the trial began on April 3, 2019.

Najib would come to court every morning in a motorcade — a luxury afforded to him as a former prime minister — and address his loyal supporters who waited for his arrival without fail. He would be accompanied by a slew of assistants, aides and associates in the short lift ride up to Nazlan’s courtroom.

In the trial’s early days, Najib made another application before Nazlan to strike out all seven charges against him as he claimed the charges were defective. Three days later, upon hearing submissions from Shafee and the prosecution, Nazlan ruled that there was no ambiguity in the charges.

To the surprise of many, Najib did not appeal the decision and the trial finally began.

Throughout the ebb and flow of the trial, Najib’s supporters eventually dwindled to a select few loyalists who would be seen lingering around the court complex to catch a glimpse of the man during recess or lunch break.

Although he must have been under immense pressure, presiding over a case of this magnitude and with local and international scrutiny, Justice Nazlan was always composed and fair to both parties. He even allowed adjournments so that Najib could attend parliament.

Thomas was tasked with establishing the role of Najib — who also held the finance portfolio during his premiership — in setting up SRC, approving loans that SRC obtained from Kumpulan Wang Persaraan (Diperbadankan) or KWAP, and channelling RM42 million from the company into his personal bank accounts.

Clearly disconcerted by Thomas’ direct line of questioning, Najib came across as someone who had never been questioned or held accountable for his actions in his life. Asked by Thomas if he had supported Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad over Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah in the contest for the Umno presidency in 1987 that had triggered the 1988 constitutional crisis, a visibly irate Najib objected to the question as irrelevant.

An amused Thomas retorted: “If your lawyers don’t object, you have to answer the question, please answer.”

Najib then answered in the affirmative.

In what seemed to be a deliberate move, Najib chose to speak in Bahasa Malaysia while the AG continued to pose questions in English, but the former struggled to answer and eventually switched back to English.

In the heated exchanges between Thomas and Najib, the Pekan member of parliament seemed almost insulted that he had been subjected to such questioning, which left him visibly unnerved.

In July 2020, Justice Nazlan delivered a scathing indictment of Najib in a 500-plus-page written judgment where he observed that this was the “worst case of abuse of position and betrayal of trust” in the country, and that Najib had shown no remorse.

He found Najib guilty of all seven charges and sentenced him to a total of 72 years in jail and fined him RM210 million.

Najib immediately filed a petition of appeal, which contained 307 grounds of appeal on why he should be freed of the charges. The CoA heard the appeal submission and reply by the prosecution for a total of 15 full days before deciding to reserve its judgement on May 18, 2021.

However, a full six months later, the CoA bench consisting of Justice Datuk Abdul Karim Abdul Jalil, Justice Datuk Has Zanah Mehat and Justice Datuk Vazeer Alam Mydin Meera had still to render their decision.

As per court practice directions and recommendations, the courts are required to deliver a decision within two months. However, in complex cases such as SRC’s, they are given more leeway.

Finally, the court set Dec 8 for its decision.

As had been customary for Najib over the three-year trial, he again employed two delaying tactics to forestall the decision.

The first was an application to vacate the decision date as he had to undergo self-quarantine for seven days due to a Covid-19 close contact. However, it was dismissed on the same day.

He then blindsided everyone by filing a new application mere days before the decision to allow new evidence, including from Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) chief commissioner Datuk Seri Azam Baki, to be adduced in his appeal.

Clearly irate, Abdul Karim ordered Najib and his lawyers to proceed with the application via Zoom. The application was denied and the judges delivered their decision the next day also via Zoom because Najib and his legal team did not attend court.

The CoA upheld the High Court’s decision and dismissed Najib’s appeal to set aside his conviction and jail sentence. Abdul Karim also labelled Najib and 1MDB a “national embarassment”.

With the walls closing in on him, Najib’s final shot at the Federal Court would be pivotal.

Again, he pulled out all the stops. First, it was getting a Queen’s Counsel from the UK to be part of his legal team at the appeal. The application was quashed by the High Court after the prosecution, the Malaysian Bar and the KL Bar among others objected to it.

Then, in an unexpected attack on the judiciary, he trained his guns on Nazlan, filing an application at the Federal Court against him.

Shafee claimed that because Nazlan had served as group general counsel for Malayan Banking Bhd (Maybank) previously and had participated in the decision to give 1MDB a loan of RM4.17 billion to partly finance the acquisition of Tanjong Energy Holdings Sdn Bhd, he should have “disqualified” himself.

A further claim that Nazlan had taken a bribe of RM1 million from 1MDB was subsequently dropped, ostensibly because it could not be proved.

Three weeks before the appeal on Aug 15, Najib discharged Shafee from the appeal, and instead hired law firm Zaid Ibrahim Suflan TH Liew and Partners and lead counsel Hisyam Teh Poh Teik.

Was it a ploy to delay the appeal? His new lawyers sought a four-month adjournment to prepare a “proper defence”.

On the first two days of hearings at the Palace of Justice, the five-member bench led by Chief Justice Tun Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat, along with Chief Judge of Sabah and Sarawak Tan Sri Abang Iskandar Abang Hashim and Federal Court judges Datuk Nallini Pathmanathan, Datuk Mary Lim Thiam Suan and Datuk Mohamad Zabidin Mohd Diah heard the applications, before dismissing the application for fresh evidence and Hisyam’s request for an adjournment of the trial.

Hisyam was told that he ought not to have taken the case if he was not prepared. Hisyam then moved to discharge himself but Tengku Maimun did not allow it. He was kept on as Najib’s counsel even though he refused to submit in Najib’s defence.

Ad hoc prosecutor Datuk V Sithambaram was asked to submit while Najib chose not to even throw a conciliatory punch in what he referred to as “the fight of his life”.

But there was yet to be another application as Hisyam sought to have Tengku Maimun recused based on a Facebook posting her husband had made in 2018 about Najib, claiming a conflict of interest on her part.

After the bench dismissed the application, it delivered its judgment, which coming after long delays was short and sweet.

“In the circumstances, having pored through the evidence, the submissions and the rest of the records of appeal, we find the appellant’s complaints as contained in the petition of appeal devoid of any merit. On the totality of the evidence, we find the conviction of the appellant on all seven charges safe. We also find that the sentence imposed is not manifestly excessive.”

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