A plot gone horribly wrong: Najib’s liberty hangs in the balance even as he takes the sumpah laknat

With time running out, Najib has resorted to using social media and even religion to plead his innocence.

(NST) – IN the midst of Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s trial involving the SRC International corruption case, the former prime minister’s lead counsel Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah once described the charges his client faced as something out of a movie.

The senior lawyer had then pledged that, just like in any good thriller, he would prove how the person who is suspected most actually turns out to be the victim in the end.

However, lead prosecutor Datuk V Sithambaram had then left all those present in court chuckling in amusement when he came out with a classic retort to Shafee’s portrayal of Najib.

He said while the defence liked to view the trial as a movie where Najib would end up as a hero, it was obvious that they had lost the plot.

Even the soft-spoken Justice Datuk Nazlan Mohd Ghazali, who had always remained impassive to the shenanigans which unfolded during trial, broke out into a smile on that day in August 2019.

Fast forward to now, it looks like what Sithambaram said about the defence losing the plot has come true.

Shafee’s movie script has indeed gone terribly wrong. Not only has the veteran lawyer been dropped from representing his famous client, the bad guy he was supposed to transform into a hero has been proven to be a true villain after all.

Yes, the plot has indeed gone horribly wrong for Najib and his entire team of high-flying lawyers.

Instead of crushing the allegations against him, the 69-year-old has ended up becoming the first Malaysian prime minister to be convicted and sentenced to jail for siphoning RM42 million of SRC money.

Since then, he has also lost almost every battle in the courts while trying to overturn his conviction and 12-year jail sentence and RM210 million fine.

As it stands now four judges – one at the High Court and three at the Court of Appeal (COA) have not only maintained his guilt but even gone as far as calling him a national embarrassment.

Worse still, the SRC case is just the first of five 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) related trials that Najib is facing.

On his part, instead of focussing on countering the cold hard facts that were presented to prove his guilt, Najib’s defence strategy has been to point fingers at others for the sinkhole he has found himself in.

Everyone from fugitive Low Taek Jho @ Jho Low, who ironically sailed with Najib on family vacations together in super yachts off the waters of France, Greece and Italy, to his bankers, former Bank Negara Governor Tan Sri Zeti Akhtar Aziz and her family were initially blamed for the RM42 million which ended up in his personal bank accounts.

Then, after losing his first appeal at the COA, the three justices who maintained Nazlan’s findings of his guilt, were branded as hostile judges who had done him wrong.

Claiming that they had been badly mistreated by the judges, Najib’s lawyers claimed the behaviour of the COA judges had left the defence walking away feeling that justice was not done to them.

Since then, a long line of others have joined the list of those accused of doing him wrong. Everyone from most Malaysians’ favourite target Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, former Attorney General Tan Sri Tommy Thomas, former Inspector General Tan Sri Hamid Bador have been singled out as conspirators who had fixed him.

However, none of these allegations got any real traction and inevitably Justice Nazlan has ended up in Najib’s crosshairs.

After initially being accused of being on the take – allegations which were later withdrawn by the former Umno president, Nazlan was subjected to all kinds of vile allegations by Najib’s supporters.

Najib himself labelled Nazlan as being biased in the handling of his trial and also claimed that the judge had been in conflict for not disclosing that he had been involved in SRC related transactions while working as Maybank group general counsel and company secretary.

The Pekan member of parliament has since latched on to this narrative and formed it as the entire basis of his final appeal at the Federal Court, pleading that he needed to present fresh evidence to back his claim on the conflict issue.

That was the only game plan which Najib’s newly appointed team of solicitors and counsels walked into the Federal Court with.

They did not even bother to prepare for the actual appeal on why the grounds cited by Nazlan when convicting him should be overturned.

There was no plan B. What followed next after his bid to introduce the so-called fresh evidence was rejected is no surprise.

This time the entire judiciary came under attack, and Chief Justice Tun Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat – who headed the panel of five Federal Court judges soon became the prime target, with death threats also issued against her.

Police have since arrested a suspect in connection with that, but in court a different drama unfolded.

Najib fired his solicitors after crying that he had been done wrong while his lead counsel – despite being given multiple chances to present his client’s case, has stubbornly chosen to remain mum after failing to discharge himself and walk away from the hearing.

With time running out, Najib has resorted to using social media and even religion to plead his innocence.

Facing the real prospect of landing behind bars, he headed to the Kampung Baru mosque last night and swore his innocence with carefully chosen words to recite the sumpah laknat (religious retributive oath).

Najib said he was prepared for divine retribution by taking the oath. He did the same in July 2020 but the High Court still found him guilty of all seven charges of misappropriating SRC funds.

He will find out tomorrow how his fate pans out this time around – whether he made the right choice in not presenting his arguments in court.

If that gamble fails, Najib may very well end up losing his liberty because of it, sumpah laknat notwithstanding.