THE Court of Appeal today reserved its judgment on Najib Razak’s appeal against his conviction over graft charges involving SRC International funds amounting to RM42 million.

Appellate judge Karim Abdul Jalil, who is chairing the three-man bench, said the court would announce its decision soon.

He did not give a date for the court’s decision.

“We will need to go through everything in detail for the time being, we will inform the date of the decision after we are ready to announce the decision,” Karim said.

The other judges in the panel were Has Zanah Mehat and Vazeer Alam Mydin Meera.

Karim also thanked the prosecution and defence team for their submissions.

The 15 days of appeal hearing came to a close today since it began on April 5.

Najib, 67, is appealing against his sentence and conviction by Kuala Lumpur High Court judge Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali, who on July 28 last year, convicted and sentenced him to 12 years’ jail and fined him RM210 million after finding him guilty on seven charges of criminal breach of trust (CBT), money laundering and abuse of position committed in embezzling the funds.

The Pekan MP is currently out on bail of RM2 million in two sureties.

In closing today, lead counsel Muhammad Shafee Abdullah said the defence is still convinced that the judge Nazlan had erred in his judgment. 

“What we have demonstrated over the number of days, the judge has mishandled the facts in a biased fashion, in a way that I did not expect in the interpretation of the law,” he said during the wrap-up in court. 

The lawyer also gave 18 points on instances where the judge had failed to appreciate the defence’s case. 

He said Nazlan “cherry picked” and overlooked evidence favourable to Najib and had been “overzealous to find Najib guilty”.  

Appellate judge Karim at 2.17pm told Shafee that the defence had presented more than enough points to the court and led the hearing to its closing. 

Outside the courtroom, Najib said he hoped for justice.

“I pray that justice will prevail and that I get the opportunity to clear my name because this period has been very trying for my family and I.”

Shafee, meanwhile, told reporters that it was expected that the Court of Appeal judges would take some time to announce its decision. 

“We don’t know how long, I presume they would want to write a written judgment with a case of this magnitude. It’s only reasonable to expect judges to write a written judgment.” – May 18, 2021.