Judge Collin Lawrence Sequerah said he decided against holding a hybrid hearing after hearing submissions from the defence and the prosecution yesterday.

“However, I will not rule out such proceedings in the near future,” he said.

Sequerah fixed Thursday for the trial to resume.

Earlier, lawyer Hariharan Tara Singh informed the judge that the MySejatera status of both Najib and his lead counsel, Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, still showed they were in the cateogory of close contact with a lawyer who was down with the virus.

Both were in close contact with the lawyer at Shafee & Co on Dec 6.

Hariharan said Najib’s MySejahtera status showed yellow, and Shafee’s was orange.

“Shafee is also under home surveillance until Dec 20,” he said, adding that Najib was outside the court and seated in his car.

Hariharan said Najib’s 10-day quarantine will end tomorrow.

Deputy public prosecutor Ahmad Akram Gharib yesterday told Sequerah that an amendment to Section 15A of the Courts of Judicature Act allowed court hearings to be carried out online.

But Hariharan objected to the proposal and cited the chief justice’s practice directive that online hearing was only applicable for civil cases.

“Hybrid hearing is possible in an interlocutory application or an appeal hearing as it does not involve witnesses,” he said.

Hariharan also said the defence would not be able to seek immediate instructions from Najib through Zoom and the conversation would be heard by everyone watching the proceedings.

During the last proceedings on Nov 18, former 1MDB director Ismee Ismail and former chief finance officer Azmi Tahir had completed their examination-in-chief but had yet to be questioned by Najib’s lawyers.

Najib is standing trial on 25 counts of money laundering and abuse of power over the alleged misuse of 1MDB funds amounting to RM2.28 billion deposited into his AmBank accounts between February 2011 and December 2014.

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