Justice Collin Lawrence Sequerah fixed the decision date after hearing oral submissions from the prosecution and the defence for 12 days since Aug 19.

“I will deliver the decision on whether to call for the defence of the accused on Oct 30 following the end of the prosecution’s case,” he said, before thanking both parties for the well-researched and thorough submissions.

On May 30, the prosecution closed its case after calling 50 witnesses.

Najib is facing 25 charges of abuse of power and money laundering involving alleged 1MDB funds of RM2.28 billion deposited into his AmBank accounts between February 2011 and December 2014.

Earlier, when replying to the prosecution’s submissions, his lead counsel, Shafee Abdullah, said all of Najib’s actions and conduct were consistent with his innocence rather than guilt.

“The prosecution did not clarify what they meant by (Najib) being a mirror image of Jho Low,” he said, referring to fugitive businessman Low Taek Jho.

He said Low had opened bank accounts all over the globe but Najib’s accounts were only maintained at AmBank here.

“We hope the court will carry out a maximum evaluation of the prosecution’s evidence and witnesses. He (Najib) should be acquitted,” he said.

Shafee said the prosecution’s key witnesses should not be believed as their evidence was not corroborated.

“In law, the court should not call for Najib to enter his defence merely to hear his explanation on the charges,” he said, adding that his client may have acted in a clumsy manner but was not a criminal.

He said the four abuse of power charges were defective as they did not state who Najib obtained the gratification from.

“The charges state Najib was the taker but did not specify from whom he received the alleged corrupt money,” he said.

Shafee said the charges should have specified that Najib received the money from 1MDB, Low or an Arab entity.

“These are the most blunderous charges by whoever drafted them,” he said, adding that the 21 money laundering charges must also collapse if the predicate offence of abuse of power failed.

Shafee said Najib, as the finance minister at the time, did not appoint “idiots” as directors to the 1MDB board but added that they “did not use their brains”.

“We had umpteen witnesses who also did not check with Najib if he gave instructions to Low (on matters related to 1MDB’s operations),” he said.

Najib’s defence is that all major decisions were made by the board and its management jointly with Low without his knowledge.

Shafee said Najib genuinely believed that all the money that was deposited into his account was donated by an Arab royal family.