Hearing of Rosmah’s bid to disqualify judge postponed after lawyer catches Covid

The hearing of Rosmah Mansor’s application to recuse High Court judge Mohamed Zaini Mazlan from presiding over her money laundering and tax evasion trial has been postponed to Feb 3 as her lead counsel, Geethan Ram Vincent, has tested positive for Covid-19.

Zaini set the new date after Rosmah’s lawyer, Azrul Zulkifli Stork, informed the court that Geethan had tested positive for Covid-19 on Jan 17 and had been ordered to undergo self-quarantine for 10 days until Jan 26.

According to Azrul, Rosmah was also undergoing quarantine until Jan 25 as she had been in close contact with her lead counsel.

“Those who also came in close contact with Geethan are other lawyers (in the team), namely Firoz Hussein (Firoz Hussein Ahmad Jamaluddin) who is undergoing self-quarantine in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah until Jan 25, and lawyers Reza Rahim and PB Rajivan Nambiar who are under quarantine until Jan 24.

“Therefore, we apply for today’s proceedings to be vacated,” said Azrul.

Azrul said a letter on the application to vacate the hearing was submitted to the court on Jan 20.

On Rosmah’s application to disqualify former Federal Court judge Gopal Sri Ram from acting as a senior deputy public prosecutor in her money laundering trial, Azrul said his team would file the application tomorrow.

Deputy public prosecutor Poh Yih Tinn said the prosecution had received a letter from the defence regarding the postponement of the hearing but that his team was ready if the court decided to continue the proceedings today.

“However, it is up to the court’s discretion,” Poh said.

This is the second time Rosmah has filed an application, after Zaini who also presided over her solar hybrid trial rejected her application to recuse himself from hearing the trial on Dec 14.