V Sithambaram, who was an ad hoc prosecutor in Najib’s trial, said Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali had been described as “prejudiced” and “hopelessly incompetent” by lawyers for the Pekan MP.

“But the decision by the Court of Appeal proves that Nazlan was correct in his judgment,” Sithambaram told FMT.

On July 28 last year, Nazlan sentenced Najib to 12 years’ jail and ordered him to pay a RM210 million fine after finding him guilty on seven counts of abuse of power, criminal breach of trust and money laundering in relation to RM42 million belonging to SRC International Sdn Bhd.

In April this year, when appealing the matter, Najib’s lead counsel Muhammad Shafee Abdullah had asked why Nazlan was appointed to hear the SRC “case of the century”, noting that the latter had no experience in handling a criminal trial.

Shafee also said the reasons provided by Nazlan in his judgment showed that the judge was “clearly biased” and suggested that “he was hopelessly incompetent”.

Sithambaram also said he was happy that the Court of Appeal judges accepted “our views as correct in law and fact”.

“We have no other motives like suppressing evidence,” said the senior lawyer who is licensed to lead the prosecution team.

Sithambaram said he expected the final appeal to be heard in the first half of next year as the appeal record was not as voluminous as the High Court record.

“The appeal can be fixed soon as we need only to get the Court of Appeal’s written grounds and notes of evidence,” the Penang-based lawyer said.

Another lawyer, Syed Iskandar Syed Jaafar al-Mahdzar, said there were several stark facts in the verdict.

One of these was that the former prime minister and finance minister had “taken money” from a pension fund and spent it on himself and his wife Rosmah Mansor.

“In fact, evidence emerged during trial that Najib bought a US$130,625 (RM466,330) Chanel watch for Rosmah, to appease his family who were unhappy their vacation to Hawaii in 2014 had to be cut short to enable him to resume work,” the lawyer said.

Syed Iskandar said Najib had acted corruptly by abusing his power to transfer money from the fund into his bank accounts.

“Najib laundered the money to escape detection,” he said, referring to the RM42 million from SRC which went into Najib’s accounts in Ambank through a circuitous route.

The lawyer also pointed out that the appellate court did not believe Najib’s defence that the RM42 million formed part of a donation from the Saudi royal family.

“There is a saying that a cat closes its eyes when drinking milk and thinks the whole world is blind,” he said.

The lawyer said the Court of Appeal verdict delivered by Abdul Karim Abdul Jalil was “spot on” when it noted that Najib had not taken any steps to ask what had happened to SRC’s RM4 billion loan and whether the money had been properly utilised.

In the judgment, Karim said Najib’s conduct reflected that once the funds had been secured by SRC, over which he had overarching control, he was free to use them for his personal benefit.

“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,” said Karim, who heard Najib’s appeal with Has Zanah Mehat and Vazeer Alam Mydin Meera.

The judge also asked why Najib never raised any complaints with Ambank that RM42 million had been wrongly credited into his accounts, but instead was content to receive and use the funds to his liking.

The bench confirmed the conviction and sentence (12 years’ jail and RM210 million fine) imposed by Nazlan.

Najib, who has been allowed a stay of sentence, has filed an appeal in the Federal Court.

Lawyer Muhammad Rafique Rashid Ali reading the judgments of the trial and appellate courts said, Najib blamed Ambank, Bank Negara Malaysia, its former governor Zeti Akhtar Aziz and former SRC International CEO Nik Faisal Ariff Kamil for embezzlement and sourcing money from illegal proceeds.

“Both judgments indicate how Najib administered the country and the nation’s purse at least over his last 10 years in power.”

He said the finding on whether an accused had acted dishonestly was a question of fact as four judges (in the High Court and Court of Appeal) had made concurrent findings that Najib lacked integrity based on solid evidence.