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KUALA LUMPUR: The defense in Najib Razak’s 1MDB trial today objected to the prosecution’s attempt to tender the witness statement of the company’s former CEO, Mohd Hazem Abdul Rahman, before the High Court.
Attorney Muhammad Shafee Abdullah told Superior Court Judge Collin Lawrence Sequerah that certain paragraphs of the witness statement contained hearsay and therefore should not be allowed.
Hazem was due to testify today as a witness after his successor, Shahrol Azral Ibrahim Halmi, completed his 40-day testimony last Thursday.
Citing one example, Shafee said Hazem made allegations that fugitive businessman Low Taek Jho, better known as Jho Low, told him that 1MDB was created to help Umno in business through strategic investments.
“This is an example of rumors when Jho Low is not called to testify and the authenticity of Hazem’s statement cannot be proven,” he said.
The defense added that paragraphs containing elements of hearsay should be removed.
In response, Assistant Prosecutor Ahmad Akram Gharib said the defense raised the same objection when Shahrol went to court to testify on September 23 last year.
“Our chief attorney for the prosecution, Gopal Sri Ram, also addressed that, before Shahrol took the witness stand and Yang Arif (Sequerah) said that the court would decide admissibility at the close of the prosecution’s case.
“For the prosecution, we say that Hazem’s testimony is not hearsay, as we will present evidence later in the trial to support it.”
He said Hazem’s evidence was related to the transactions in Najib’s four abuse of power charges.
Sequerah said the court will decide on Tuesday when the trial resumes.
Najib faces 25 charges of abuse of power and money laundering for alleged 1MDB funds amounting to RM2,280 million deposited into his AmBank accounts between February 2011 and December 2014.
