THE Kuala Lumpur High Court will hear Najib Razak’s application to recuse prosecutor Gopal Sri Ram from the 1Malaysia Development Bhd audit report tampering trial on August 7.

Judge Mohamed Zaini Mazlan today dismissed an application by the defence to adjourn the audit-tampering trial pending the recusal bid.

Earlier, Sri Ram, who leads the prosecution, argued that the trial is well under way with just four prosecution witnesses that remain to be cross-examined by the defence.

“As far as the application to have me disqualified, as your lordship knows, trial dates in your lordship’s diary are worth more than diamonds.”

The 76-year-old Sri Ram added that Najib’s application is not disimiliar to other bids to recuse him from the 1MDB trial, which cited his purported bias.

Najib’s lead counsel, Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, argued that to proceed with the trial would mean the recusal application would be “trivialised” and made “non-existent”.

The defence lawyer added that to allow the trial to go on would go against Lord Hewart CJ’s oft-quoted dictum that “not only must justice be done, but it must be seen to be done.”

“I am aware that recusal applications must be disposed of first, but I am not aware that the same argument applies to an application of this nature.

“Having done nine days, if we allowed the application, we would have wasted nine days. I am inclined to proceed with the trial,” said Zaini in rejecting Shafee’s argument.

The application to disqualify Sri Ram is supported by two affidavits, one by Najib and another by former attorney-general Apandi Ali.

The application was made after Apandi said in a Facebook post last week that Sri Ram had tried to coax the former A-G to arrest Najib, then prime minister, for corruption in 2018, just months before the 14th general election.

In court filings, Najib’s lawyers argued that the trial has been compromised due to political persecution, prosecutorial misconduct and bias, said a member of the legal team.

Najib is facing trial for using his position to remove parts of the auditor-general’s final audit report on 1MDB between February 22 and 26, 2016, at the Prime Minister’s Department before it was tabled to the Public Accounts Committee, to protect himself from criminal action.

Former 1MDB CEO Arul Kanda Kandasamy is also on trial for abetting Najib.– June 15, 2020.