CASE management over Najib Razak’s charges was today adjourned due to incomplete documents sought for by the defence.

High Court judge Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali then fixed October 31 for re-mention of the matter.

Najib’s lawyer, Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, said case management could not continue today as the prosecution had only provided documents related to the SRC International charges in CD-ROM format with no hard copies.

He added that while his team had printed out the documents from the CD-ROM, they were still unable to read parts of the documents.

He said the documents were also not orderly and had no index.

“To make matters worse, the prosecution is telling us that they have not given us the complete set of documents,” he said at a press conference outside the court today.

Shafee said after raising the issue, the prosecution promised to hand over all documents in two weeks’ time.

He also slammed the prosecution for the delay, which impacted the defence’s preparation for the case, set to begin in February next year.

“If this can happen to a case involving a former prime minister, imagine what could happen to a member of the public when, after being charged, the prosecution is unable to hand in documents.”

He added that his request for the full set of documents when the matter was first brought to court on July 4 had only been received last month, and that, too, in CD-ROM format.

“We had asked previously, including in open court, and twice had written to them; only today have they given us the documents that we have been asking for for weeks.

“But that, too, in CD-ROM format, not hard copies,” he said.

Earlier in the court, Shafee and his team got into a long argument with lead prosecutor Sulaiman Abdullah over the documents handed over to the defence.

“We can’t read some of the documents in the CD format. Give us documents in a proper format so that it’s something we can digest.

“What is so special about this case that we are given CD format? Treat us as equals, not special. It is also standard practice for documents to be served to the counsel, not to my client,” Shafee said.

He added that Najib was given a CD-ROM on August 8. On October 3, when Najib visited his wife, Rosmah Mansor, at the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) headquarters in Putrajaya, an officer also attempted to serve another CD-ROM to Najib.

However, Sulaiman said the prosecution had tried to serve the documents under Section 51A of the Criminal Procedure Code, but were unable to do so.

He urged Shafee to get on with the trial and stop making insinuations and wasting time.

“I don’t know why my learned friends are so reluctant to meet us in a pretrial conference. Maybe because there’s no publicity for the meeting,” Sulaiman said.

To this, Shafee said all the defence wanted were the documents. – October 4, 2018.