Rosmah’s appeal hearing
to recuse trial judge in
graft case vacated
A case management will be held on Nov 7 to fix the new hearing date.
Lawyer Akberdin Abdul Kader, a member of the legal team representing the wife of former prime minister Najib Razak, said the Court of Appeal has allowed an application by her defence team to postpone the hearing.
“We sent a letter last week and the request was allowed. A case management will be held on Nov 7 to fix the new appeal hearing date,” the lawyer told FMT.
Earlier, the court’s media communication unit informed the press that the hearing had been vacated to another date.
In April, the Court of Appeal fixed Oct 23 and 24 to hear Rosmah’s appeal.
At the time Akberdin said the bench would first hear Rosmah’s appeal to recuse trial judge Zaini Mazlan from hearing the case, allegedly on grounds that certain third parties had prepared a draft of the judgment for him.
He said the substantive appeal will be heard if the court refuses to grant the recusal.
On Sept 1, 2022, Zaini, now a Court of Appeal judge, dismissed a last-minute application by Rosmah to stop the judge from presiding over her case.
Rosmah had sought to disqualify Zaini after a purported draft of his judgment was published by the late blogger, Raja Petra Kamarudin.
She claimed that the judge ought not to preside over the case since she had lost confidence in him. Zaini dismissed the application.
On the same day, Zaini convicted her of soliciting RM187.5 million from former Jepak Holdings Sdn Bhd managing director Saidi Abang Samsudin through her former aide, Rizal Mansor, as an inducement to help the company secure the solar project.
She was also convicted of receiving bribes amounting to RM5 million from Saidi, through Rizal, at Seri Perdana in Putrajaya on Dec 20, 2016, and another charge of receiving RM1.5 million from Saidi at Jalan Langgak Duta on Sept 7, 2017.
Zaini sentenced her to 10-year jail terms for each of the three charges but ordered them to run concurrently. He also ordered her to pay a RM970 million fine.
The court also ruled that Rosmah serve another 10 years in prison after her initial sentence if she failed to pay the fine.
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