Day 14 of Najib's SRC trial: Najib fails in bid to disqualify former Federal Court judge

KUALA LUMPUR (May 7): Datuk Seri Najib Razak's SRC trial will start a little later today as the former premier will have to travel to the Court of Appeal in Putrajaya to know the outcome of his appeal to remove former Federal Court judge Datuk Gopal Sri Ram as a prosecutor in his 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB)  case.

As with criminal trials the accused person is required to be present in court even though this is an interlocutory appeal matter.

Following that decision, Najib will then have to travel to KL to attend the SRC proceedings.

The 29th and 30th prosecution witness namely former KWAP assistant vice president Amirul Imran Ahmat, and Affin Bank's branch manager Norhayati Mohd Yunus are expected to be cross examined today.

Amirul, who had not been cross-examined, testified that Najib signed the guarantee letter for SRC to take the additional RM2 billion loan from KWAP, and also that the agency broke its own rules when it gave out the first RM2 billion loan to SRC.

According to KWAP's rules, it cannot extend financing facilities to a company that exceeds the company's shareholder equity limit. In this case, SRC's shareholder equity amounted to RM1 million.

Norhayati was meanwhile questioned by lawyer Farhan Read over the purported transactions from Ihsan Perdana Sdn Bhd into Najib's AmBank accounts to the amount of RM42 million, the sum over which the former PM is facing seven counts of criminal breach of trust, abuse of power and money laundering. — theedgemarkets.com

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