KUALA LUMPUR (Oct 2): There is no escaping the various court judgements in the SRC International Sdn Bhd corruption case, for which former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak is currently in prison, as its shadow looms over the 1Malaysia Development Bhd-Tanore (1MDB-Tanore) trial.

The 1MDB-Tanore trial, which is at the end of the prosecution's case, is set to wrap up this week, after which the High Court judge will set a date to deliver his decision on whether the ex-PM has to enter his defence, or can walk free.

In presenting their arguments, both the prosecution and the defence cited portions of the SRC judgements from the High Court, appellate and apex court.

The defence contended that the factual matrix of the 1MDB case differs from that of the SRC case and therefore the court should not consider elements of any of the related judgements.

However, the prosecution asserted that there are many similarities between the two cases, and that trial judge Datuk Collin Lawrence Sequerah can consider the judgements as findings of facts and judicial precedent.

One particular example raised by the prosecution at the trial on Wednesday was the issue on whether there was a difference between the use of the monies for political or private gains.

At the trial, deputy public prosecutor (DPP) Ahmad Akram Gharib highlighted the SRC trial judgement, where then-High Court judge Datuk Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali ruled that any SRC funds spent, even on charitable purposes, promoted Najib's political standing.

The Court of Appeal and Federal Court have upheld Nazlan's findings.

"A lot of issues in our case present the same situation as SRC. The defence contends that our charges are defective as Najib was never present at AmBank. Then (if that is the case), the charges in SRC were also wrong as Najib was never in AmBank," Akram said.

Akram added that as long as the charges were not misleading and Najib can prepare his defence, the charges were not defective. It did not matter whether Najib used the purported funds for personal or political reasons, Akram had told the court earlier.

On Tuesday, DPP Kamal Bahrin Omar said the prosecution was only concerned with the fact that the alleged funds, which entered Najib's accounts, came from illegal proceeds.

As for the money-laundering charges against Najib, Kamal submitted that Najib engaged in money laundering by receiving, transferring, and using proceeds from an unlawful activity as testified by the prosecution witnesses.

The prosecution’s arguments followed the defence's contention on Tuesday that whatever monies, which the defence insisted were donations, were all utilised for charity and not personal gains.

At the time, lead defence counsel Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah said the defence has proven that “99% of money in Najib’s account was not used for his personal purposes”.

“My Lord, I have to use this word; it is against the pathology of corruption, that a person took this money and spent it not for personal use, but for the benefit of the public,” Shafee said then, when Sequerah asked the parties to clarify the difference between political and private gains.

According to the defence, the charges against Najib overlapped, were not specific enough, and therefore presented difficulties in mounting a proper defence. On this ground itself, Najib should walk free, the defence said.

Challenging the facts of the abuse of power charges, which were alleged to have happened at AmIslamic Bank Bhd along Jalan Raja Chulan, the defence had stated that Najib was not even present at the bank to abuse his official position there.

"My client hasn't even seen the AmBank building," Shafee had argued previously during the defence's submissions in mid-August.

The trial, which has dragged on for six years, commenced in September 2018.

Najib faces four counts of abuse of power for using his position as prime minister, finance minister and 1MDB board of advisers chairman to receive gratification. He also faces 21 counts of money laundering involving over RM4.3 billion of 1MDB funds.

In the SRC trial which concluded at the Federal Court in August 2022, Najib was found guilty of all seven charges, namely three counts of criminal breach of trust, one count of abuse of power, and three counts of money laundering involving RM42 million of SRC funds. 

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