KUALA LUMPUR, July 4 — Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s lawyer today questioned the prosecution’s readiness to prosecute the former prime minister, asking if they were truly prepared to press charges back in July 2015.

Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, the lead defence lawyer for Najib, referred to the alleged charges that were purportedly ready under then attorney general (AG) Tan Sri Abdul Gani Patail. 

“When they charged my client, you would have thought they must be ready. After all, Tan Sri Gani Patail and his gang said we were ready in July 2015.

“If you were ready in July 2015, how come you all were not ready today and why did it take you so long to charge?” he told the media today after his client was released on bail. 

“So it tells you something, that the attempt to so-call charge him in 2015 was a little suspicious, if it’s true there was an attempt to charge him,” he claimed.

Shafee had claimed that it was the prosecution instead of the defence that asked for one month for the cases to be mentioned again, also alleging that the prosecution had not provided documents for the defence team to refer to in preparation for trial.

“If you don’t have documents given to you to see the detailed allegation, how are you going to defend yourself?” he said.

He noted that lawyers typically spend months going through a lengthy process of exchanging documents with the other side in civil lawsuits for a ruling that is purely financial in nature, contrasting it with criminal cases that involve penalties such as death or lengthy imprisonment.

While noting that AG Tommy Thomas had in court cited a provision where the documents were only required to be given before trial, Shafee argued that it should be “reasonably before trial” and that it should be given as speedily as possible.

Shafee went on to compare his experience with his previous defence of former Selangor mentri besar Tan Sri Muhammad Muhammad Taib when the latter was charged in Australia.

“When I went there, when Mat Taib was charged, the very day he was charged, the DPP came with the IO to give this stack of this much paper. ‘This is the paper we have brought and we will prove the case through this,’” he said in indicating the Australian prosecutors’ readiness.

When asked later, Shafee said he was not given any documents by the prosecution except the charge sheets containing the charges against Najib.

Earlier today, Najib claimed trial to two criminal cases, involving three counts of criminal breach of trust and one count of abusing his position for gratification of RM42 million said to belong to former 1Malaysia Development Berhad unit SRC International Sdn Bhd.

Thomas, who is leading the prosecution against Najib, said the cases today arise from an investigation paper by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission that reached his office three weeks ago.

https://www.malaymail.com/s/1648774/why-take-so-long-to-charge-najib-if-truly-ready-asks-shafee