PUTRAJAYA: The Court of Appeal has allowed Najib Razak 30 days to file his petition of appeal against his conviction on seven counts of corruption relating to RM42 million belonging to SRC International.
This was after deputy public prosecutor Mohd Ashrof Adrin Kamarul told a three-member bench led by Has Zanah Mehat that he was not objecting to the motion filed by the former prime minister.
Lawyer Farhan Muhammad Shafee, who appeared for Najib, said the motion should be allowed in the interest of substantial justice.
“The motion is allowed according to order in terms,” said Has Zanah who sat with Lee Swee Seng and Nordin Hassan.
In his application, Najib requested for the 30-day period to begin from Sept 18, a day after his defence lawyers received the appeal records from the High Court.
According to Rule 65 (1) of the Court of Appeal Rule 1994, any petition of appeal must be filed within 10 days after service upon an appellant or within such an extended period as the court may allow.
Najib, who has affirmed an affidavit in support of the motion, said his lawyers received the appeal records running into 112 volumes and the 801-page judgment on Sept 17.
“It is impossible to prepare a complete and concise petition of appeal in order to address all major issues which were dealt with by trial judge Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali,” he said.
On July 28, Nazlan sentenced Najib to 12 years in jail and ordered him to pay a RM210 million fine after ruling that the latter was guilty of abuse of power, criminal breach of trust (CBT) and money laundering.
Nazlan allowed Najib’s application to stay the jail sentence and fine but the former prime minister was asked to post a RM2 million bail, which he did.
Meanwhile, case management was fixed for Oct 2. -FMT