PUTRAJAYA: Datuk Seri Najib Razak will know today if his conviction and sentence in relation to the RM42 million SRC International Sdn Bhd funds is maintained.
A three-man bench comprising judge Datuk Abdul Karim Abdul Jalil, Datuk Has Zanah Mehat and Datuk Vazeer Alam Mydin Meera are set to announce the verdict soon.
The decision will be delivered via a hybrid Zoom proceeding, in which the judges and members of the prosecution team will appear physically in court while Najib and his legal team will attend the proceedings via Zoom from their respective locations.
The court decided for a hybrid Zoom proceeding as Najib and his lawyers had close contact with a Covid-19 positive person.
The atmosphere at the Palace of Justice where the Court of Appeal is located was calm as there was no presence of Najib's supporters hovering in the court area.
Despite the absence of supporters, there was tight security control at all the court's entrances.
It is understood that about 100 media personnel from both local and international news agencies were present to cover the event.
The former prime minister is appealing to quash his conviction on three counts of criminal breach of trust (CBT), one count of abuse of power and three money-laundering counts involving RM42 million funds from SRC International.
On July 28, last year, High Court judge Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali sentenced him to 12 years' jail and fined him RM210 million after finding him guilty on all seven charges.
Najib had subsequently filed an appeal over the decision citing 307 grounds.
Yesterday, the court threw out Najib's last minute bid to introduce new evidence in the case.
In the unanimous decision, Abdul Karim said Najib had failed to cumulatively satisfy the requirements of the law besides failing to show any exceptional circumstances on why his application should be allowed.
Abdul Karim noted that any new evidence Najib wanted to introduce must be evidence that was not available during trial, relevant, and credible and creates reasonable doubt in the prosecution's case.
On Nov 23, when the Court of Appeal announced that it was going to deliver its decision on the appeal on Dec 8 (today), Najib's lead counsel Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah filed a bid the next day to postpone the decision on grounds that Najib was still in Singapore and had to undergo quarantine when he gets back.
The court had on the same day rejected the application.