HOW MANY TIMES HAS NAJIB’S TRIAL BEEN DELAYED? THE ANSWER MIGHT SURPRISE YOU
Without some of us realizing it, it’s already March, meaning that it had been almost a year since the Pakatan government took over Malaysia. There had been a lot to look forward to back then, and one of them was Tun Dr Mahathir’s promise to clear Malaysia of corruption. Among other things, he had pledged to arrest the infamous “Malaysian Official 1” and other sharks, as well as getting to the bottom of the 1MDB scandal.
We’re pretty sure by now everyone knows that Malaysian Official 1 is really the former Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak, but almost a year on, if you haven’t been paying close attention, there seems to be no real progress in that department. Some on social media have been getting antsy over it, and are wondering if Najib and his lawyers are intentionally dragging out the case for as long as they can. Recent news of the appeals being delayed because Najib’s lead counsel had injured his hand by playing with his pet dog definitely didn’t help.
To be fair, he had put up a statement defending himself, which you can find here.
Najib is facing up to 5 separate trials for 42 charges. If you remember Anwar Ibrahim’s sodomy case (the sequel, a.k.a. Sodomy Part II), you probably have an idea of how long court cases can take, especially if it’s a high-profile one. Anwar was charged in 2008, tried in 2010 and 2011, acquitted in 2012, de-acquitted in 2014, and jailed in 2015. That’s a total of 7 years from charge to jail… for a single charge (Section 377B of the Penal Code).
