High Court: Prosecution must formally request for Najib to apologise for FB post

KUALA LUMPUR: The High Court here has asked the prosecution to make a formal application for former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak to apologise for his social media post on his ongoing SRC International trial.

Justice Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali said this on Tuesday (July 23) after Najib's defence team argued that the prosecution had not defined what Najib did wrong with regards to his post.

Lead counsel Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah said that it was "odd" for prosecution to call Najib's posting sub judice but not contempt of court.

"It's odd to say sub judice but not contempt (of court); as the issue of sub judice is always (under) contempt of court," argued Shafee.

"Are you going to ask him (Najib) to apologise when he does not know what he did wrong?" Shafee said.

Attorney General Tommy Thomas had earlier said that the posting was sub judice in nature but not contempt of court.

Thomas asked this after Nazlan questioned whether his application was for the court to make a ruling whether Najib's posting constituted contempt of court.

Najib, who is on trial for the alleged misappropriation of RM42mil in SRC International Sdn Bhd funds, had last week made a posting on his Facebook page to explain his credit card spending, a matter which was discussed as part of his trial.

The defence also asked the court to make a ruling on whether the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) had committed abuse of power by directing AmBank to notify it first before releasing Najib's bank documents to him.

Muhammad Shafee said that there was no law that said that the MACC can stop Najib from accessing documents related to his own bank accounts.

Counsel Harvinderjit Singh added that the difficulty Najib has in accessing documents related to his own bank accounts was also hindering the defence's work when preparing their case.

The trial is set to continue before Nazlan in the afternoon.

Outside the court earlier, a chorus of Allah Selamatkan Kamu (May Allah bless you) rang at the endurance of the Kuala Lumpur Court as Najib arrived for his trial at about 11am.

A group of his supporters had assembled from around 10.30am to greet Najib on his 66th birthday, which falls today.

After eating a piece of cake, Najib went on to the fifth floor of the courthouse to attend his trial.