Najib-Irwan IPIC Trial: The prosecution needed one month to declassify a large trove of documents to form part of the defence teams of Najib Abdul Razak and Mohd Irwan Serigar Abdullah in the RM6.6 billion criminal breach of trust (CBT) trial.
This resulted in the Kuala Lumpur High Court on Wednesday deferring the first day of the originally scheduled hearing in the case of alleged payments to the International Petroleum Investment Company (IPIC) and postponed it until July 22.
Najib-Irwan IPIC Trial Deferred
During the open-court hearing before Judge Muhammad Jamil Hussin, Deputy Public Prosecutor Muhammad Saifuddin Hashim Musaimi said that they needed about a month to declassify the documents related to the Official Secrets Act of 1972.
The prosecutor said lawyers Muhammad Shafee Abdullah and K Kumaraendran notified the team that the defence had not received the complete set of important trial documents.
Shafee and Kumaraendran represent former Prime Minister Najib and former Finance Minister Irwan, respectively.
While allowing the deferment, Jamil reminded the prosecution and defence that the case had been ongoing since 2018, when Najib and Irwan first sought trial on six counts of CBT involving RM6,636,065,000 of Malaysian government funds.
What Are the Charges?
On October 25, 2018, Najib and Irwan pleaded not guilty in the Sessions Court to all six charges of CBT. The case was then referred to the High Court.
Najib and Irwan allegedly committed all the crimes between December 21, 2016 and December 18, 2017, at the Ministry of Finance Complex in Putrajaya.
They were charged under Section 409 of the Penal Code, read in conjunction with article 34 of the same Code, which provides for a maximum of 20 years in prison, whipping and a fine.
However, as both are over 50, they would be spared whipping if found guilty.
On the first count, 70-year-old Najib and 67-year-old Irwan were jointly charged – in their capacity as finance minister and treasury secretary-general respectively, in charge of RM1.2 billion belonging to the government – with committing CBT of the funds.
On the second count, they were accused jointly – in the same capacity – of violating RM655 million CBT belonging to the government.
On the third count, they were jointly accused – in their capacity as public servants and in the same position – of committing CBT of RM220 million belonging to the government under the Federal Consolidated Fund under the “Belanja Mengurus di Bawah Maksud B11 Perkhidmatan Am Perbendaharaan, Aktiviti 021700 KL International Airport Berhad” that were entrusted to them.
The two were also jointly accused of compromising CBT of RM1.3 billion entrusted to them by the Federal Consolidated Fund under “Maksud B11 Perkhidmatan Am Perbendaharaan, Aktiviti 020500 Subsidi Dan Bantuan Tunai”, belonging to the government.
On the fifth and sixth indictments, they were jointly accused of committing CBT of CN¥1,950,000,000 (worth RM1,261,065,000) and RM2 billion respectively, which belonged to the government.
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