SINGAPORE (Mar 18): The corruption trial of former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak was delayed yet again after his lawyer Muhammad Shafee Abdullah requested for a postponement.

The reason? The high-profile lawyer’s dog had “playfully jumped” on him and caused a “soft tissue injury” to his wrist, leaving him unable to continue with his submission.

Despite the widespread mockery he received online, Shafee was granted the postponement (until March 15) by a three-man panel at the Court of Appeal on March 12. He was supposed to present his submissions on an appeal relating to a technicality on a transfer of charges between courts. The appeal, which was granted on Feb 11, had already delayed Najib’s corruption trial by more than a month.

Najib was to have faced seven of the 42 counts of corruption and embezzlement brought against him on Feb 12. The trial is centred on three charges of money laundering, three of criminal breach of trust and one of abuse of power, for the sum of RM42 million transferred from a 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) subsidiary company, SRC International, into Najib’s personal bank accounts.

The delay has frustrated many Malaysians, who had hoped to see Najib brought to book for his part in the 1MDB scandal.

The scandal, which led to the loss of his government in the 2018 general election, has been described as “the mother of all scandals” by many. The sovereign development fund was the brainchild of Najib when he first came into office, and was aimed at attracting investments, especially from the Middle East, into Malaysia.

However, an estimated RM2.6 billion is believed to have been siphoned off from the fund and frittered away on a luxury yacht, jewellery, priceless paintings and exclusive real estate. Of the RM2.6 billion, RM42 million found its way into Najib’s personal bank accounts, and within four years of its inception, the fund racked up nearly US$12 billion in borrowings. Doubts began to surface when the fund seemed to have little to show for it. When media, including <i>The Edge Malaysia</i>, broke the story, the sheer scale of the web of deceit and ill-gotten gains was staggering.

The person said to have orchestrated all this was Low Taek Jho, better known as Jho Low. He is now wanted by the authorities in Malaysia, Singapore and the US for his involvement in the scandal.

Low’s whereabouts remain unknown but that has not stopped him from issuing regular statements. The latest was on March 14, denying that he made donations to a political fundraising committee related to US President Donald Trump, as alleged by an article by <i>The Wall Street Journal</i> (WSJ).

According to WSJ, the US Department of Justice was investigating if a US$100,000 donation to the Trump Victory Committee in December 2017 by a man called Larry Davis, who co-owns investment company LNS Capital, had originated from Low. The report claims that LNS Capital, a Hawaii-based company, had been a major political donor.

The paper also alleged that Davis’ wife, Nickie Lum Davis, was a “long-time political fundraiser” who had helped Low persuade the Trump administration to drop the 1MDB investigations.

Low, in his statement, added that he had never entered into any agreement and/or paid, or authorised payment of any money to the entities referred to by WSJ. “Indeed, Mr Low had never heard of LNS or Larry Davis until referenced by [WSJ],” the statement said.

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