The defence, who are the appellants here, were scheduled to have completed their arguments last Thursday but their submissions spilled over into another two days, taking a total of six days.
Lawyers Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, Harvinderjit Singh and Farhan Read made oral submissions before a three-member Court of Appeal bench chaired by Abdul Karim Abdul Jalil.
The other two judges are Has Zanah Mehat and Vazeer Alam Mydin Meera.
All eyes will now be on ad hoc prosecutor V Sithambaram tomorrow when he, a top criminal lawyer who has been given a licence to prosecute, begins his submission.
The hearing had been fixed for 12 days from April 5 to 22 with four days allotted to the defence and prosecution.
Both parties have been given two days each to make the final round of submission.
Shafee said their main theme was to point out the way that trial Judge Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali had come to his conclusion at the close of the prosecution and defence case during the trial.
“The judge’s grounds of judgment was flawed for calling for Najib’s defence on all seven corruption charges,” he told a press conference after today’s proceedings.
Shafee said the judge had misconstrued concepts of law and did not give Najib the benefit of the doubt.
“In criminal law, the most favourable inference should be given to an accused person who should be entitled to an acquittal without his defence being called,” he said, adding that Nazlan did not examine the flawed case of the prosecution.
However, the lawyer said the judge became very analytical of the evidence once Najib’s defence was called.
“He placed a wrong burden on Najib,” Shafee said, adding that Nazlan could have amended the power abuse and criminal breach of trust charges before the defence was called.
Najib was convicted of abusing his power as prime minister by giving government guarantees on SRC International’s RM4 billion loan from Retirement Fund Inc.
He was also found guilty in three criminal breach of trust and three money laundering charges in relation to RM42 million belonging to SRC International Sdn Bhd, a former unit of 1MDB.
Last July, High Court Judge Nazlan sentenced Najib to 12 years’ jail and ordered him to pay a RM210 million fine after finding him guilty of all corruption charges in relation to RM42 million belonging to SRC International Sdn Bhd.