One hijrah year: Mahathir subtly acknowledged he is wrong
Another Brick in the Wall
Today is the second day of Ramadhan. Yesterday, after Terawih prayer, it was exactly a hijrah year and one day that Dato Najib’s home was raided upon his return from 1MDB-funded Kg Baru Mosque.
It is not to commemmorate the momentous occasion. As of May 7th today, it is 9 days to May 16th midnight and stretching to May 17th, they day it will be exactly one Gregorian year since the raid. Till today, there has been no charges with regard to the seized goods.
The AMLA law allows for the seized goods to be held for six months and any extension will require a court order. Upon reaching a year without any charge, there is no more legal avenue for the police to hold back the properties and money seized.
In March 18th posting, this blog raised the issue of some goods were possibly missing and the seizure done at the condominiums was in absence and without owners’ signature to acknowledge the goods seized.
It was done in contravention of the Criminal Procedure Code. The police stands to be liable to any dispute on the goods seized. Dato Najib raised about the UMNO money declared by police was short.
SRC snag
Despite no charges made with regard to the goods and money seized, the government charged Dato Najib with 5 sets of charges.
On the first case of SRC, the government side seemed to face a snag since the testimony of government witnesses from the Banks did not came out as expected.
It was supposed to be a plain sailing for prosecution to lay out and confirm the background of the case, prove there is a prima facie case against Dato Najib, defence present their case, and Gopal Sri Ram’s “That’s my boy!” send the former PM to jail.
However, the cross examination by the defence lawyers wiped the smile off the faces of Tommy Thomas and Uma Devi. There were smiling and main mata at each other in broad daylight of the court in session.
It may have been upsetting for Dato Najib, who should not be happy with this obvious indication that the witness is biased and likely coached by AGC, possibly Tommy Thomas himself.
Thus far, the defence side managed to uncover the correspondence of Joanna Yu, the banker at Ambank handling former PM Dato’s Najib’s account SRC proceeding in which there was a request PM not be told of a particular transaction.
Her name was mentioned as an important character at Ambank in Tom Wright and Bradley Hope’s book Billion Dollar Whale.
