Najib and Rosmah to be in adjacent courtrooms

KUALA LUMPUR: For the first time in the country’s history, a former prime minister and his wife will be in court simultaneously to face criminal charges against them.

Datuk Seri Najib Razak and Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor will be in adjacent courtrooms in the High Court today as the latter’s trial involving a billion-ringgit project to provide electricity to rural schools in Sarawak will begin.

While it is the start of Rosmah’s trial, Najib’s SRC International Sdn Bhd trial is resuming with him on the witness stand to wrap up his re-examination by his lawyer Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah.

Rosmah has been charged with two counts of soliciting RM187.5 million and receiving RM1.5 million over the same project. In April, 2019, she was slapped with a new charge of receiving RM5 million in kickbacks.

The trial will kick-off with the prosecution, led by Datuk Seri Gopal Sri Ram, reading its opening statement with the intent to lay out Rosmah’s role in the charges against her.

Datuk Rizal Mansor, a former aide and special officer to Najib, was jointly charged with her for receiving bribes for himself and Rosmah amounting to RM5.5 million involving the project to supply and install rural school solar energy in Sarawak. Rizal was charged under Section 16(a)(A) of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission Act 2009.

However, his charges were withdrawn by the prosecution last month with a view of calling him as a prosecution witness at a latter stage of the trial.

Sri Ram has previously mentioned that the prosecution will look at how the case goes along to see if it would need to call Rizal.

In the first charge, Rosmah is alleged to have solicited RM187.5 million or 15% of the project cost from Jepak Holdings Sdn Bhd managing director Saidi Abang Samsudin between March 2016 and April 2016 at Sunway Putra Mall in Kuala Lumpur, as inducement to help secure the project.

She also faces a second count of receiving RM1.5 million from Saidi in 2017 as her reward. The second corruption charge is for the RM5 million reward she allegedly received from Saidi at her home on Jalan Langgak Duta, Taman Duta, on Dec 20, 2016.

Rosmah will be represented by Datuk Jagjit Singh, Manjeet Singh Dhillon and Datuk Akberdeen Abdul Kader.

Najib, on his part, is facing seven charges of criminal breach of trust, money laundering and abuse of power involving a total of RM42 million of SRC funds.

The Edge is reporting the proceedings of the SRC triallive.

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