PUTRAJAYA (Feb 22): The prosecution in Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s case told the apex court bench on Wednesday (Feb 22) that there was no miscarriage of justice with the previous bench’s decision last August that upheld his conviction and sentence on SRC International Sdn Bhd, and that seeking an adjournment was no grounds for the former premier to ask for a review.

Ad hoc prosecutor Datuk V Sithambaram said the defence’s main ground in citing the review was with regard to not gaining an adjournment after then counsel Datuk Hisyam Teh Poh Teik failed in his bid to adduce further evidence on trial to judge Datuk Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali.

He further said that granting postponement is the court’s discretion and the Federal Court had an inherent jurisdiction on whether to grant it or otherwise, and the apex court should not be faulted if it did not grant it.

“In this case, Najib’s defence (counsels) were given four months to prepare the case and the setting of the August date was on their own insistence, with the long duration of appeal hearing.”

In between, Sithambaram said there was a change of solicitors from Messrs Shafee & Co to Messrs Zaid Ibrahim Suflan TH Liew, but the prosecution showed that the replacement solicitors had already obtained the record of appeal in June itself and not in July, three weeks before the scheduled appeal.

The counsel further pointed to Datuk Zaid Ibrahim’s interview with Astro Awani to prove the point wherein Zaid said they had obtained the records and had scrutinised 30,000 pages of the appeal records in June.

“ZIST (Messrs Zaid Ibrahim) had about two months to prepare the case and not three weeks as alleged,” Sithambaram added.

“As lawyers, when the first application fails, there always has to be a plan B. The prosecution says that the defence led by Hisyam was confident in getting an adjournment. This is in no way the fault of the court, as in prior two case managements and two previous correspondences, the apex court indicated (that) there would not be any adjournment,” he added.

“The granting of adjournment is not how it works on assurance by counsel. The solicitor should not mislead Najib that adjournment be granted as off right. All of us come to court prepared and we always have a plan B, in case the court does not grant anything. One must be ready to submit,” Sithambaram said.

Sithambaram further said that it was Najib’s own doing which had resulted in the court not granting the adjournment, as Najib knew four months before the appeal hearing date that the dates had been fixed.

More to come