At a press conference after the court’s ruling, Najib said that throughout his time in public office, he had placed emphasis on promoting national interest.
“During my tenure, the total assets of the country grew to RM2 trillion. Therefore, I created a lot of wealth,” he said, adding that the country suffered a RM31.5 billion loss in a foreign exchange scandal between 1991 and 1994.
Earlier today, judge Abdul Karim Abdul Jalil, in delivering the court’s decision, said Najib did not take any steps to ask what happened to SRC’s RM4 billion loan and whether the money had been properly utilised.
He said Najib was actively involved in ensuring that the loan from the government pension fund (KWAP) was disbursed to SRC but later took a “lackadaisical attitude”.
He said the former prime minister did not find out the whereabouts of the money and even ordered then second finance minister Ahmad Husni Hanadzlah to keep off SRC’s matters.
“The conduct of the appellant (Najib) can be indicative of only one thing, and that is once the funds had been secured by SRC, in which he had overarching control, he was free to utilise them for his personal benefit.
“This is manifested by the flow of the RM42 million into his personal accounts.
“This is not something that can be said to have been done in the national interest. There is no national interest here, just a national embarrassment,” he said.
The other judges who sat with Karim were Vazeer Alam Mydin Meera and Has Zanah Mehat.
The court affirmed the High Court’s decision in July 2020 to convict Najib on seven charges over RM42 million SRC International funds that entered his accounts.
It also upheld Najib’s 12-year jail sentence and RM210 million fine. However, Najib was released on bail pending his final appeal before the Federal Court.
Najib’s lawyer, Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, told reporters the “national embarrassment” remark was unnecessary.
“We are pushing this appeal to the Federal Court. Assuming the Federal Court is with us, that remark can be expunged,” he said.
Asked whether he wished to contest in any election pending his appeal, Najib said he did not know when elections would be held. “We will cross the bridge when we come to it,” he said.
‘Bad management of public funds’
Karim said the bench agreed that the trial judge was entirely correct in finding that the prosecution had proven the power abuse charge against Najib under Section 23(1) of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission Act 2009 beyond reasonable doubt.
He said it would be rather absurd for the government to guarantee a loan to SRC – a government-linked corporate body – knowing well that it did not have the ability to repay the loan or service the interest.
He said it would not be in the national interest to have a stable of insolvent companies, with full government exposure to the loans taken by these companies.
“That is simply bad financial management of public funds,” he said.
Najib had taken part in the decision-making process to give government guarantees on SRC International’s RM4 billion loan from KWAP in 2011 and 2012.
A total of RM42 million was deposited into his bank accounts between December 2014 and February 2015.
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