Najib’s lawyer Muhammad Shafee Abdullah told reporters this after meeting High Court judge Mariana Yahya in chambers today.
Najib is challenging then attorney-general Tommy Thomas’ decision to appoint Sri Ram as deputy public prosecutor under Section 376 of the Criminal Procedure Code. He claims that Sri Ram’s appointment is a conflict of interest.
Apandi had previously filed an affidavit to support Najib’s application to disqualify Sri Ram in leading the 1MDB audit report tampering case. He claimed that the former judge had met him a few months before the 2018 general election and asked him to arrest Najib.
“We had informed the Attorney-General’s Chambers that we intend to use Tan Sri Apandi’s affidavit in our judicial review application, and we served the notice to them yesterday,” Shafee said.
He said that senior federal counsel Shamsul Bolhassan, appearing for the attorney-general, had informed the judge that they needed to get instructions on whether to oppose Najib’s move to include Apandi’s affidavit.
“The judge set July 13 to hear our judicial reviews. I will stand in for Datuk Seri (Najib) and Harvinderjit will stand in for me,” Shafee said, referring to co-counsel Harvinderjit Singh.
Shafee has also filed a similar application to recuse Sri Ram from leading the prosecution in his own RM9.5 million money laundering case.
He is facing four money laundering charges over alleged funds from Najib.
Sri Ram is currently leading the prosecution team in the 1MDB case where Najib is standing trial on 25 money laundering and abuse of power charges amounting to RM2.28 billion.
He is also spearheading the prosecution in the 1MDB audit report case, where Najib is accused of abusing his powers in causing amendments to the report’s finalised version before it was tabled to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC).
Former 1MDB chief executive officer Arul Kanda Kandasamy is accused of abetting Najib.
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