JAILED former prime minister Najib Razak’s legal team is partly responsible for why he is behind bars, according to former attorney-general (AG) Tommy Thomas.

Describing defence counsel’s “suicidal” actions for not making any submissions during the SRC International Sdn Bhd appeal in Federal Court, Thomas said Najib’s lawyers were the “authors of their own misfortune”.

“It was so extraordinary because it was suicidal and kamikaze,” Thomas said to Malaysiakini.

“At the end of the day, the first duty of a lawyer is to his client, to preserve the interest of his client.

“How is a client’s interests protected by this kamikaze attitude? The client is now in prison.

“Nobody in the common law world could have predicted that. They are authors of their own misfortune. It was self-inflicted or self-induced,” Thomas said, adding this was not common practice among lawyers.

He said the best way to understand such behaviour is: a week prior to the hearing, if you had asked any barrister or judge in the entire common law world, they would share the same jurisprudence.

If you told the lawyers or judges “this is what is going to unfold when the appeal is called up, they are given 10 days and this is what is going to happen”, those same barristers and judges would say it could not happen, you are telling a fiction, that is not how lawyers behave, he said.

At the apex court, Najib’s lead counsel Hisyam Teh Poh Teik said the defence would not make any submissions because his team did not have enough time to prepare.

Chief Justice Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat, who chaired the five-member panel presiding over the appeal, gave time for the defence to prepare their submissions, but Teh reiterated that they will not make any.

Najib hired Messrs Zaid Ibrahim Suflan TH Liew & Partners and Teh at the 11th hour prior to his final appeal, after the Pekan MP discharged his initial counsel Messrs Shafee & Co.

Despite initial reports stating that Zaid Ibrahim’s firm wanted to discharge itself from acting for Najib if the apex court proceeded without adjournment, Zaid later dismissed this by saying his firm will not “abandon” its client.

However, in the hearing, Najib Zaid’s team, leaving him with just Teh and two other lawyers – Low Wei Loke and Kee Wei Lon – as co-counsels.

Meanwhile, Teh was ordered to represent Najib and proceed with the case.

In the end, the Federal Court quashed his appeal, and upheld his conviction and 12-year prison sentence, to commence immediately.

Structural problem cause for delayed conviction

Thomas also said the structural problem in the Malaysian court system was the reason for Najib’s delayed sentencing in the SRC International case.

The former AG also blamed the lawyers for such structural problems.

“We have a structural problem in Malaysia and it is caused by lawyers who don’t want trials to go from beginning to end, so let’s blame the lawyers first, and the courts are also reluctant,” he said.

Thomas said he had suggested to the court to have the all trial dates grouped together but Najib’s original counsel Muhammad Shafee Abdullah and High Court judge Mohd Nazlan Ghazali rejected the idea.

“I said to (trial judge) Justice (Mohd) Nazlan Mohd Ghazali) [to do it in one go], and the reason is very simple: it is much more efficient for lawyers on both sides and for the court to focus on one case for four weeks, five weeks, two months or three months.

“Of course, Shafee objected, saying it never happened like that in criminal courts, but Justice Nazlan did not deal with my request either.

“The effect was, as you know, the trial was done in phases, so you get two weeks, then break, then three days, then break, and I think the trial lasted 50 or 60 days, but spanning two years,” he said.

Citing trials related in other parts of the world, including those related to 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) in the United States, Thomas said the court reached a verdict in a short span of time compared to the SRC International trial in Malaysia.

Thomas claimed that if the court had accepted his suggestion, then the SRC International case would have taken just three months.

“If they had accepted my suggestion, we would have had three months of trial – and then there would have been a reserved judgment, and the judge could give the judgment.

“That was what happened in the Court of Appeal and, to some extent, the Federal Court. The Federal Court gave 10 days, the Court of Appeal gave 15 days, so those two appellate courts were more amenable to what we had in mind,” he added. – September 6, 2022.