Nail-biting: Rosmah will find out the outcome of her application to disqualify the judge and her trial.
KUALA LUMPUR: All eyes will be on Justice Mohamed Zaini Mazlan today as he will be delivering his decision at the end of Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor’s trial in the RM1.25bil solar hybrid case.
Whether he convicts or frees Rosmah, the public will want to know the words and reasoning in his judgment as the spotlight has been on him lately, due to a purported “leaked judgment”.
Just days ago, Malaysia Today published a scanned copy of what appears to be the “judgment” by Justice Zaini, whom the portal claimed will convict the wife of former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak at the High Court.
The purported “judgment” was published on Aug 26 titled “Rosmah Mansor Will Be Pronounced Guilty On 1st September 2022”.
However, upon close inspection, the “leaked” copy turned out to be a research paper prepared for the judge to assist him in making his findings in the case.
Now, there is an eleventh hour application filed by Rosmah to recuse Justice Zaini in light of the alleged leak, which she says has caused her to lose confidence in the upcoming decision.
He would, however, have to deal with the application first before delivering his decision.
Another key figure in the case is Datuk Seri Gopal Sri Ram, a former Federal Court judge, who is leading the prosecution against Rosmah.
The two have locked horns in the courtroom with Sri Ram firing questions at her and Rosmah, who did not take it lying down, would question him back.
Justice Zaini, who is known for his cool temperament in the courtroom, has had to step in a few times.
Rosmah also questioned Sri Ram’s authority by attempting to disqualify his appointment as an ad hoc prosecutor more than once.
The latest attempt to disqualify Sri Ram, by way of filing for leave to initiate judicial review, failed on Tuesday when another High Court judge, Justice Ahmad Kamal Md Shahid, allowed a preliminary objection raised by the Attorney General’s Chambers (AGC) in Rosmah’s application.
Two people had testified in Rosmah’s defence, including herself. Her other witness was Datuk Seri Siti Azizah Sheikh Abod who was the former director of First Lady Of Malaysia (FLOM) division.
Najib was initially listed as a defence witness but he was later dropped. One of Rosmah’s lawyers, Datuk Jagjit Singh, told the court that Najib’s evidence was only corroborative in nature and this has already been established by the defence.
Rosmah, 70, is facing a charge of soliciting RM187.5mil and two charges of accepting bribes amounting to RM6.5mil from the former managing director of Jepak Holdings Sdn Bhd, Saidi Abang Samsudin.
The bribe was allegedly received through Rizal as a reward to help Jepak Holdings obtain the Integrated Solar Photovoltaic (PV) Hybrid System Project as well as genset/diesel maintenance and operations for 369 schools worth RM1.25bil through direct negotiations from the Education Ministry.
