THE Kuala Lumpur High Court has dismissed Najib Razak’s application to disqualify Gopal Sri Ram from leading the prosecution team in his 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) cases.

In addition, Judge Collin Lawrence Sequerah said he will not order Attorney-General Tommy Thomas to produce the letter of appointment of the former federal court judge as a senior deputy public prosecutor.

“No less than the attorney-general himself has appeared before the court (to testify). The appointing attorney-general himself confirmed the appointment of GSR (Gopal Sri Ram),” Sequerah said in his ruling today.

“It follows that there is no need for the letter of appointment to be produced because there is no reason to doubt its existence,” he said.

Present was Najib, who sat in the dock and did not speak throughout the proceeding.

Thomas told the high court last week that defence lawyers have no legal right to view Sri Ram’s appointment letter as the matter was subject to attorney-client privilege.

Sri Ram’s appointment as prosecutor for Najib’s 1MDB and related cases was announced on August 31.

Shafee told the court he would apply for a stay of the SRC International trial, set to begin in April. Sequerah said he would agree to a stay if the appeal at the Court of Appeal is not heard before then.

Earlier, Sequerah said Public Prosecutor may appoint fit and proper persons to be deputy public prosecutors under Section 376(3) of the Criminal Procedure Code.

“What emerges from a plain and literal reading of the sub-section is that firstly, it does not stipulate that such appointment has to be in writing and secondly, it does not state that such appointment must be produced from demand,” he said in his ruling.

Sequerah said Thomas himself stated in the court that Sri Ram was appointed pursuant of Section 376(3) of the CPC, that it can be taken that Sri Ram “has the imprimatur” of the attorney-general to prosecute his cases. 

“This itself would place any lingering doubts as to the locus standi of the GSR to appear to prosecute these cases beyond doubt,” he said. 

Sequerah added that he agreed with attorney-general’s analogy of solicitor-client privilege with regard to private practitioners as contained in Section 126 of the Evidence Act 1950. He agreed with Thomas’ argument that “prosecutors cannot be placed in a worse off position than those in private practice.” 

The judge noted that the defence lawyers’ “apprehension or fears” of overzealous prosecution on the part of Sri Ram is based on “mere speculation as opposed to actual prosecutorial misconduct.” 

“Upon consideration of all the facts, I do not find any basis that would lead a responsibly-informed member of the public to conclude that the applicant wuld not be accorded a fair trial should GSR be involved in prosecution.” 

Thomas announced the appointment of Sri Ram on August 31, last year, to lead prosecutors in several criminal cases against Najib.

He is also leading prosecutors in criminal cases against Najib’s wife, Rosmah Mansor, Shafee, former Sabah menteri besar Musa Aman, Umno president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, former Treasury secretary-general Mohd Irwan Serigar Abdullah, former 1MDB CEO Arul Kanda Kandasamy and former spy chief Hasanah Ab Hamid.

Sri Ram, 74, began practising law in 1970 until his elevation to the Court of Appeal in 1994 – the first legal practitioner in Malaysia to be appointed directly to an appellate court. He was made a judge of the Federal Court of Malaysia in 2009, and retired a year later.

Najib faces 42 criminal charges, mostly related to 1MDB. – March 1, 2019.