KUALA LUMPUR – Lawyer Tan Sri Muhammad Shafee Abdullah lambasted Malaysian Bar president Karen Cheah over her criticism of his client Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s reduced sentence.
“Cheah does not understand the law and ought to go back to law school,” Shafee said to reporters at the Kuala Lumpur courthouse, here today.
“Our attempt or purpose for getting a pardon is because we said Najib had never gotten a fair trial or fair appeal, especially at the Federal Court when the request for adjournment was not granted. It is not the normal pardon, where a convict pleads guilty and asks for mercy.
“So, in that context, what is the Bar talking about? They are completely ignorant, they’ve missed the boat and don’t understand the law.
“The Bar seems to not understand what a fair trial is. Maybe because the president has never done a criminal trial,” Shafee added.
Cheah in a statement had expressed the Bar’s disappointment with the Pardons Board’s decision, taking issue with claims by government figures that the reduced sentence was solely the Yang di-Pertuan Agong’s prerogative.
She said the Agong’s constitutional power to grant a pardon is not discretionary and is exercised on advice.
Shafee, however, countered that the king had sole discretion over the advice and views of Pardons Board members.
Najib’s reduced sentence was decided by the Pardons Board on January 29, the day before Al-Sultan Abdullah Ri’ayatuddin Al-Mustafa Billah Shah of Pahang ended his reign.
The new Agong, Johor’s Sultan Ibrahim Sultan Iskandar, ascended the throne on January 31.
Earlier, Shafee said that Najib is considering filing a fresh petition for a royal pardon but did not state when.
“It wouldn’t be so soon, as the current Yang di-Pertuan Agong has yet to warm his seat,” Shafee added.
The Federal Territories Pardons Board announced its decision through the legal affairs unit of the Prime Minister’s Department on February 2, reducing Najib’s jail sentence from 12 years to six and his RM210 million fine to RM50 million.
His conviction and original sentence were ordered by the high court in July 2020 for corruption involving RM42 million in SRC International Sdn Bhd funds.
Under his reduced sentence, Najib will be released on August 23, 2028, if he pays the RM50 million fine, but will remain incarcerated for a year longer, until August 23, 2029, if he fails to do so.
However, he is also eligible to apply for parole next year, after serving half of his reduced sentence.
Najib, who was also previously finance minister and oversaw 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB), still has three other court cases pending.
They are for alleged corruption involving RM2.3 billion of 1MDB funds, which is currently in the trial stage; misappropriation of RM6.6 billion in relation to the International Petroleum Investment Company (IPIC), for which trial is to begin in June; and money-laundering charges involving RM27 million of SRC International funds, which are to be heard in September. – February 7, 2024